Old Superliners?

About 7am this morning, I saw what appeared to be about half a dozen old superliner type cars attached to a south bound CSX freight. (just north of Richmond. Va. )They were whiter in color, than the ones I see on the Auto Train, the windows looked a little smaller, but they definitely had two levels to them. Any ideas on what they were or where they were going?


Win

they may have been retired Metra Bi Level comuter coaches

Mr. Chef, might this be the equipment you observed in the CSX freight?

http://hometownheritage.com/railsite/images/VRE_3.jpg

These are ex-C&NW gallery cars that were placed in service during the '60's. With the acquisition of new equipment, METRA (the Chicago rail commuter agency) was able to retire these cars, and arranged a sale or lease to "ererging" VRE.

Some of the cars never were painted into VRE livery, rather simply retaining that of METRA.

http://www.drgw.net/~f40c/cars/cnw/7843ta.jpg

Except for the color, that's it! I didn't pay close enough attention to see what the markings were. I live right on the old RF&P mainline and with the amount of traffic we see, I had seen it was a csx freight going by, but didn't pay much attention, until the shape of the cars was made me look up.

did they per chance have a brown stripe on them with the off white paint?

that sounds right.....I think so

Like yo?
http://www.drgw.net/~f40c/cars/cnw/7777ta.jpg

This was a livery used circa 1977 subsequent to the RTA being organized, but before the marketing name of METRA was adapted for rail operations.

There they are!!! What are they and where do you think they were going?

Mr. Chef, this was ex C&NW equipment that was delivered in the C&NW Green top Yellow sides livery. There is some, albeit slight, possibility the cars could be ex-CRI&P that were delivered in a flaming Red livery, but since there were only about 20 of those cars, I would discount such.
C&NW livery:

There's a slim possibility that these were a set of cars which a railcar dealer out in Joliet has had on hand for several years. Those were painted white, with red window band striping (rather than burnt orange 'n' brown). Otherwise, I can't think of any such cars which are pretty much up for grabs and un-accounted for. Metra has had all but one (still lingering in the Western Avenue yard) off the property for at least a year now.

There's an article in this month's Railfan where 10 of the VRE Gallery cars have been purchased by Nashville's Music City Star. The MCS began operation Sept 06 with 10 Metra Gallery cars & 3 ex-Amtrak F40's. If you look close, they could be lettered NERR? (The Nashville & Eastern operates the old TC line from downtown Nashville to Lebanon & points East in TN)

The 10 cars would double the MCS fleet (if none are needed for parts cars). At the last open house, it was surprising to me how well the old cars had held up after all these years. Metra may have rebuilt them in the 1990's? The biggest chore may have been to rewire them (I understand the required control equipment is a lot smaller now)

The Tennessee Central railway museum will have an open house next Sat. I'll see if any new cars are on the property. The TCry crews did all of the painting for the MCS cars. (Some of them came in a green/yellow scheme like C&NW but lettered Chicago & Great Western).

It appears the VRE has bought some 20+ new cars. They had a Sounder set that can be sent back to Seattle?

We heard about those green and yellow cars over on the Metra forum a while ago, and figured out that those were actually former C&NW, then Amtrak inter-city bilevels which were never used for commuter service. Some charter train operator in Wisconsin bought them from Amtrak years ago and repainted them into the C&NW colors (Great Lakes Western was the operator, I belive). GLW had been defunct for a while prior to them being sold to the Music City Star operation, and the latter probably got them for a bargain. Based on the rust issues which have cropped up on some of the older flat-sided bilevels (cars that were being maintained on a regular basis, by Metra), those old inter-city cars are probably only going to hang around until their mechanical parts have been used up by the active fleet, and then it's off to the scrapyard for them.

GWoodle wrote: It appears the VRE has bought some 20+ new cars. They had a Sounder set that can be sent back to Seattle?

It was. It went west on #7 almost two weeks ago.
(The interiors of those cars are VERY nice - makes me jealous as an ex-Metra rider and current Amtrak trainman.)

MODERATOR'S NOTE:

Since it's confirmed that the rolling stock has nothing to do with Amtrak, this thread is being moved to the General Discussion: Locomotives, Rolling Stock, and Equipment thread.

Thanks!