Corridor Then...

I am going to take a liberty and paste a posting in its entirety here that I made to the Consists topic at Mr. Benton's Rail Travel Forum.

While of course any submissions I have made to that topic are consists taken from the pre-Amtrak era, that which I made today of PRR 121, The Afternoon Congressional during 1966, could have bearing regarding an Amtrak Forum topic of where the Corridor has come (gone?) in the past forty one years.

Possibly some comments made could be the catalyst for worthwhile Amtrak related discussion:

• OK; this month let’s take a look where the Northeast Corridor has “come to” over the past forty one years:
  
  PRR 121 Midday Congressional (dp Penn 11AM 3‘50“ to Wash) observed Wilmington Sep 23, 1966 (drove up from Dover AFB for some railfaning):
  
  GG-1 4818
  REX 6561 BoxCar
  6562
  6563
  6564 (those numbers could translate to same style car)
  PRR “Congo” Parlor Miles Standish (sp is correct; New Haven had a Diner Myles Standish)
  Casmir Pulaski
  Kitchen Lounge 4625
  Full Diner 4624
  “World’s Fair PRR” Coach 1523
  “Congo” 1579
  1585
  “World’s Fair N&W” 1498
  “Congo” 1569
  1529
  1525
  RF&P Coach 855 NY-Bhm to RF&P/SAL 21 Silver Comet
  SAL 6239
  10-6 Winter Haven
  11BR Venice NY-Atl
  
  “Congo” refers to Budd PRR equipment delivered 1952 and intended for specific assignment to the “Congressional” and “Senator”, however by about 1960, Pennsy had simply pooled these cars amongst all NY Wash trains.
  
  “World’s Fair PRR” refers to Coaches rebuilt from Budd 21 Roomette “--Inn’ during 1963 “World’s Fair N&W” refers to Coaches rebuilt from Budd N&W 10-6 “--College” during 1964.
  
  As can be noted, the Corridor trains had become “Maid of all Work” with both the Railway Express Boxcars on the head and interchange cars for RF&P.
  
  So let’s “fast Forward” to present day and consider what Amtrak now offers. This is Regional 125 dep Penn 1135A arr Wash 255P or 3’20”. This train likely has an eight car consist (Business, Café, six Coach likely AEM-7 on the head) AND Acela 2117 (Penn 12N ar Wash 245P or 2’45”). That consist is of course a six car set..
  
  Of course no Amtrak locomotive has the looks of a pin striped (or even solid stripe large Keystone) GG-1, but to the passenger “plunking the plastic down” for a ride (cash, anyone still use that stuff?) they could only conclude that rail service in the Corridor has markedly improved under Amtrak’s stewardship.
  
  However, I guess with PRR you could enjoy a cooked on board Luncheon, but the menu had largely been relegated to cold Turkey and Ham sandwiches and maybe a 6oz Club Steak.
  
  Of course as with anything in this life, "you get what you pay for"; back then PRR quoted $10.65 NY-Wash (any time any train); Amtrak notes at page 115 of the System Timetable a range of $67-128. I defer to other to make the inflation adjustment.

According to the Inflation Calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ , $10.65 in 1966 dollars would be worth $65.78 in 2006 dollars. So the bottom of the price range has barely moved.

One big difference is freight. It's technically possible to send stuff up and down from WAS-NYP using Package Express or having a ticket. (You can check your bags and they get picked up by the next LD (south of NY) or 66/67 (north of NY). I"m sure a vast majority of Amtrak riders either can't use this service or don't know about it.

this is a very interesting topic to me as I have a huge collection of pre
Amtrak timetables and a big interest in what was operated in the north-
east in the 50's and 60's.
I assume that GBN is using the summer of 1966 as his point. In the
April 24, 1966 Pennsylvania Railroad New York - Washington timetable
they offered a total of 13 trains in each direction between the two points.
They carried a variety of equipment but not all of them had dining cars as
the snack bar coach had started to make inroads on the dining cars.
In the Amtrak timetable of July 9, 2007 there are about 37 trains offered
between the two points with various types of equipment but I would think
that most of the cars are better than what the PRR offered 41 years ago.
In any event, there are nearly three times as many departures a day as
there was 41 years ago on the PRR. Would anybody really want to go
back to the service offered in the summer of 1966? I know I would not.
Not just New York - Washington but New York - Boston, New York - Albany
and other areas also have much more service than they did in 1966.
In most cases, corridors all over the place have better service today than
they did in 1966.
Noel Weaver

Would those World's Fair...coaches have been built for the 1939 World's Fair in New York City? It seems that extra train service used to be part of the planning process for the World's Fairs. I know that Amtrak scheduled an extra daily train to Expo 74 in Spokane from Seattle via the Stevens Pass route. Were there any extra trains added for any of the other recent World's Fairs? (Montreal '67, San Antonio '68, Knoxville '82, New Orleans '84, Vancouver '86)

Vincent wrote:Would those World's Fair...coaches have been built for the 1939 World's Fair in New York City? It seems that extra train service used to be part of the planning process for the World's Fairs. I know that Amtrak scheduled an extra daily train to Expo 74 in Spokane from Seattle via the Stevens Pass route. Were there any extra trains added for any of the other recent World's Fairs? (Montreal '67, San Antonio '68, Knoxville '82, New Orleans '84, Vancouver '86)

My guess would be New York '64. And yes, the Pennsy did run through trains to Willets Point (Now Shea Stadium) on the Ex-PRR current LIRR

The_Rockaway_Kid wrote:

Vincent wrote:Would those World's Fair...coaches have been built for the 1939 World's Fair in New York City? It seems that extra train service used to be part of the planning process for the World's Fairs. I know that Amtrak scheduled an extra daily train to Expo 74 in Spokane from Seattle via the Stevens Pass route. Were there any extra trains added for any of the other recent World's Fairs? (Montreal '67, San Antonio '68, Knoxville '82, New Orleans '84, Vancouver '86)

My guess would be New York '64. And yes, the Pennsy did run through trains to Willets Point (Now Shea Stadium) on the Ex-PRR current LIRR

I took the PRR to the '64 fair (from Philadelphia) and a change was required at Penn Station to the LIRR. A trail of painted footprints led the way at Penn Station. The PRR was AC catenary powered. The LIRR was third rail DC: same as today.

The_Rockaway_Kid wrote:

Vincent wrote:Would those World's Fair...coaches have been built for the 1939 World's Fair in New York City? It seems that extra train service used to be part of the planning process for the World's Fairs. I know that Amtrak scheduled an extra daily train to Expo 74 in Spokane from Seattle via the Stevens Pass route. Were there any extra trains added for any of the other recent World's Fairs? (Montreal '67, San Antonio '68, Knoxville '82, New Orleans '84, Vancouver '86)

My guess would be New York '64. And yes, the Pennsy did run through trains to Willets Point (Now Shea Stadium) on the Ex-PRR current LIRR

I am not saying that there were no through trains but I do not think there
were any regular through trains from PRR points to the fair. It would have
involved a power change in a very congested area on a main line track
and a heavy grade as well. The New Haven had the only equipment that
was capable of a through move from PRR to the LIRR and no NHRR
equipment went to the worlds fair to my knowledge.
Noel Weaver

[quoteThe New Haven had the only equipment that was capable of a through move from PRR to the LIRR[/quote]What equipment would that be? The only thing that comes to mind is the FL9. None of the EP- or EF-series motors could do it, i.e. not without having their third-rail contact shoes positioned for over-running third rail.

EP units regularly went into Penn Station so that means that their shoes were either dual position or retractable. If the FL-9's had dual position shoes why not the EP-5s?

I find it interesting that the Midday Congressional still had a twin unit diner then.

The really high-end consist would have been the Afternoon Congressional which also had a twin unit diner --- plus a conference room parlor car and a parlor-lounge-obs car. I am not totally certain of this but I believe the Afternoon Congressional kept all those amenities into early Penn Central

The EP units had retractable shoes (I think), but in any case, they'd enter Penn under AC power. There's quite a few pictures of them sitting in the open space west of Penn - the PRR would swap the EP out for a GG-1.

For fair run through in '39, the LIRR would hook up a DD-1 to the train and pull it out there - the GG-1 would stay along to provide train steam. Thus, the current Shea station is the farthest east on LI the GG-1 ever went

Jersey_Mike wrote:EP units regularly went into Penn Station so that means that their shoes were either dual position or retractable. If the FL-9's had dual position shoes why not the EP-5s?

The EP units went into NYP on catenary with shoes retracted.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: GG-1 4818
REX 6561 BoxCar
6562
6563
6564 (those numbers could translate to same style car)
PRR “Congo” Parlor Miles Standish (sp is correct; New Haven had a Diner Myles Standish)
Casmir Pulaski
Kitchen Lounge 4625
Full Diner 4624
“World’s Fair PRR” Coach 1523
“Congo” 1579
1585
“World’s Fair N&W” 1498
“Congo” 1569
1529
1525
RF&P Coach 855 NY-Bhm to RF&P/SAL 21 Silver Comet
SAL 6239
10-6 Winter Haven
11BR Venice NY-Atl

[/list]

This thread began with a passenger train consist, and few things get me salivating quite as much as a passenger train consist. Therefore, a couple of further comments on this:

1. The twin diner set Gil's notes show is one of the ones built for the Congo trainsets (For the record those were 4624,25,26,27). PRR also had other Budd twin diner sets that were not Congo cars. I believe the kitchen cars of the other sets were Kitchen dorms rather than kitchen-lounges.

2. The consist states Miles Standish was a Congo parlor. I thought I would add that Casimir Pulaski was a Congo car too (PRR had some heavyweight parlors in service into the 60s, however I do not know if any made it as late as '66. Perhaps some did.)

3. The 32 Congo coaches were numbered 1560-1592.

4. The "World's Fair" conversions could be a bit trying to travel on since the seats were not aligned with the windows, hence you could find yourself sitting against a solid wall! Other than that they were fine.

Volks, the protocol I have always followed in my submissions to theConsists topic has been to list pertinent car details once until they are changed by a following car.

Further, there is simply not resources available to provide descriptions of each car cited. It is presumed that any student of the railroad's "postwar lightweight" fleet has access to any of the relevant historical details of such.