printman2000
Engineer
Read elsewhere that the great dome has been ovehauled at Beech Grove, been painted in Phase II paint, and was at CUS this morning in the yard.
Amtrak's Full Dome
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Maybe theyll hook it up to the 40th Anniversary Train!
Nah, that makes too much sense, it's Amtrak! :lol:
Ryan
Court Jester
Actually, I'd much prefer that it get hooked to a train that I can ride!
Devil's Advocate
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I was thinking the exact same thing.Actually, I'd much prefer that it get hooked to a train that I can ride!
I have no idea when/if the anniversary train will be coming to SAS, but even if it did all you'd be able to see out of the dome would be the same station you can look at any time and day of the week. If it were up to me the dome would be on a constant rotation through all the top scenic routes. I guess you'd need to install some heavy anti-trucker armor and artillery batteries to keep that thing safe from today's truck drivers.
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Michael061282
Lead Service Attendant
having ridden in a full dome and a "regular" dome.. the full dome is over rated. That being said, its all we've got so bring it on. But seriously the smaller domes are much better. BTW, are they planning on using it on the Adirondack between Mtl & Albany this fall like they've been doing the last few seasons?
Not having ridden in the Great Dome, but many times in Budd domes, I would be very interested in your thoughts on the comparisson between the two.
:hi: OK guys! They can put it on the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Ltd. since those are the only LD Trains I can ride!! The Heartland Flyer could run it once in awhile too,that North Texas and Oklahoma scenery is to die for! :lol: :lol: :lol:Actually, I'd much prefer that it get hooked to a train that I can ride!
Seriously, it makes no sense why it doent run on the Cardinal and Adirondack Fulltime, no matter what Patrick says!
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Rail Freak
Engineer
Not to mention the fire retardants & pontoons!!!!I was thinking the exact same thing.Actually, I'd much prefer that it get hooked to a train that I can ride!
I have no idea when/if the anniversary train will be coming to SAS, but even if it did all you'd be able to see out of the dome would be the same station you can look at any time and day of the week. If it were up to me the dome would be on a constant rotation through all the top scenic routes. I guess you'd need to install some heavy anti-trucker armor and artillery batteries to keep that thing safe from today's truck drivers.
OlympianHiawatha
Engineer
True it would be GREAT on the Heartland Flyer going through the Arbuckles but there are no Trans cars to mate up to it. Of course they could always reactivate a Hi Level Transition Coach......:hi: OK guys! They can put it on the Texas Eagle and the Sunset Ltd. since those are the only LD Trains I can ride!! The Heartland Flyer could run it once in awhile too,that North Texas and Oklahoma scenery is to die for! :lol: :lol: :lol:Actually, I'd much prefer that it get hooked to a train that I can ride!
Seriously, it makes no sense why it doent run on the Cardinal and Adirondack Fulltime, no matter what Patrick says!
Ispolkom
Engineer
What advantage would a Amtrak's Great Dome have over a Sightseer Lounge car on a Superliner train like the Sunset Limited or the Heartland Flyer? Heck, the Sightseer Lounge car doesn't have seats with their backs to the windows, like the Great Dome does.
Ryan
Court Jester
Visibility forward. On my first trip on the Capitol Limited (1994), the train was still single level with a dome - spent all night up there watching the signals swap from green to red as the head end of the train zipped past.
PerRock
Engineer
But tacked onto the end of a Superliner train the view forward would be of the Transition Sleeper car end.
One could get a view out the rear...
peter
One could get a view out the rear...
peter
Ispolkom
Engineer
And not much better than the view from the railfan door.
Plus, it really has to be an entirely single-level train. I've been in the ex-Milwaukee Road Super Dome with two single-level cars between the dome car and the first Superliner car, and there's really no view forward.
The best view is from the front window of the smaller domes. That is, if there is not another dome in front of you. Of course you should not hog that area taking pictures.
OlympianHiawatha
Engineer
My only Dome experience was back in the early 90s just before the CONO went Superliner. As soon as we boarded in Chicago and I found out there was a Dome in consist, I trotted right to it, but the Conductor asked me to hold back until after Carbondale as he wanted to shove all the UofI and SIU college students in there so they wouldn't disturb the rest of the train. Right after Carbondale, I headed to the Dome and stayed there all night, and for most of that time was the only person in there, even all through the next day. When I finally returned to my regular seat to get something out of my kit, the Attendant was relieved, worried I had gotten "lost" somewhere.
And it was fascinating watching the signals drop, although I often was blinded by opposite direction freights that would switch back to FULL headlight right after passing our lead unit, not realizing we had a Dome on.
And it was fascinating watching the signals drop, although I often was blinded by opposite direction freights that would switch back to FULL headlight right after passing our lead unit, not realizing we had a Dome on.
Since I'm a person "of a certain age" (aka Old! :giggle: )and was able to ride Trains most of my life, I have been fortunate enough to ride in lots of Dome and Lounge Cars.
My best Dome memory is riding the Texas Eagle, on the old Mopac, from Austin to St. Louis when I joined the service in 1961. I had a Roomette and all meals in the Diner courtesy of Uncle Sam ,but with the exception of eating, I spent all evening/night and morning in the Small Dome/Lounge that was in front of the Diner. Who wants to sleep when they are riding on a First Class Train in a Dome Car!
The only time I rode the Amtrak Dome was last Summer on the Surfliner from SBA to SAN, once again I gave up my Seat (Biz Class) for a Seat in the Dome! In all honesty, I prefer the Smaller Dome/Lounges but since Amtrak only has one left ( and it sounds like it will be around for awhile if Beech Grove painted and rehabbed it! ), riding it is a treat everyone should take advantage of while they can!
My best Dome memory is riding the Texas Eagle, on the old Mopac, from Austin to St. Louis when I joined the service in 1961. I had a Roomette and all meals in the Diner courtesy of Uncle Sam ,but with the exception of eating, I spent all evening/night and morning in the Small Dome/Lounge that was in front of the Diner. Who wants to sleep when they are riding on a First Class Train in a Dome Car!
The only time I rode the Amtrak Dome was last Summer on the Surfliner from SBA to SAN, once again I gave up my Seat (Biz Class) for a Seat in the Dome! In all honesty, I prefer the Smaller Dome/Lounges but since Amtrak only has one left ( and it sounds like it will be around for awhile if Beech Grove painted and rehabbed it!
), riding it is a treat everyone should take advantage of while they can!
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Careful Jim using that language. At least we have not grown up, we still play with trains.
:giggle: :lol: :help:Aloha
The smaller domes offered much greater visibility. The all forward-facing seating, either 24, or in the case of Santa Fe's luxury swivel seated Pleasure Dome, 18 seats, allowed you to "Look up, down, and all around", in the words of some contemporary brochures of the time. The height of the front and rear windows was better in the small domes than the Great Domes and the Super Domes.
I was among those that got very little sleep having abandoned my comfortable assigned Sleepy Hollow recliner, for the superior visibility of the dome seat on my first transcontinental ride on the old CZ in 1969. :blink:
The Canadian has domes too. I've ridden it several times and always spend time in the done. On one trip myself and an older guy played trains. We called the signals like we were the engineer and fireman. I don't recall how we got started, but we did this for an hour or so.
I lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas in the early 1960s and used to ride the Planetarium Chair Cars on the Texas Eagle which were Pullman Standard built dome coaches, but I never saw a Dome lounge on the Texas Eagle. I rode on Budd Built Dome coaches on the Missouri River Eagle which were similar to all the Budd Built Domes.Since I'm a person "of a certain age" (aka Old! :giggle: )and was able to ride Trains most of my life, I have been fortunate enough to ride in lots of Dome and Lounge Cars.
My best Dome memory is riding the Texas Eagle, on the old Mopac, from Austin to St. Louis when I joined the service in 1961. I had a Roomette and all meals in the Diner courtesy of Uncle Sam ,but with the exception of eating, I spent all evening/night and morning in the Small Dome/Lounge that was in front of the Diner. Who wants to sleep when they are riding on a First Class Train in a Dome Car!
The only time I rode the Amtrak Dome was last Summer on the Surfliner from SBA to SAN, once again I gave up my Seat (Biz Class) for a Seat in the Dome! In all honesty, I prefer the Smaller Dome/Lounges but since Amtrak only has one left ( and it sounds like it will be around for awhile if Beech Grove painted and rehabbed it!
Ryan
Court Jester
I was assuming that the trans-dorm would be up front where it usually is, and the dome would be between the bag and the trans-dorm.
Also being of a certain age (66) I remember a lot about domes.
My first dome to ride was between Little Rock and Dallas on the Missouri Pacific (like Jim) Texas Eagle from Memphis to Texas. The small Memphis section and the much larger St Louis section joined at little Rock for points south.
My first dome just to see was on the Illinois Central Panama Limited stopping in Memphis overnight from New Orleans to Chicago. The nice porter let me get on for a few minutes, walk upstairs to the dome, wave down to daddy. We were visiting my sister while she lived in Memphis.
IMHO domes were still "special" in the 50s. Much as the Acela is special today.
One thing which might get lost in the generation gap here is this: domes were not just about scenery, they were also status symbols. That is, they were mostly just on the "best" trains, and not the podunk locals, for example, regardless of what scenery might be there in that time of day.
The above noted Panama Limited is a good example of this. Being honest there is not a lot of spectacular scenery between CHI and NOL and the Panama was a fast 16 hr overnight train. The most unique scenery is the waters approaching NOL. Yet the Panama was one of the finest trains in the land, very much like the 20th Century Limited and the Broadway, but somehow did not get as much publicity.
Sure, scenery did figure into it. For example, the CZ had five domes, the Super Chief had one and the Sunset limited had none.
Domes did not fall out of the trees like leaves. Compared to single level equipment there really were not a lot of domes. Just mostly on the super fancy trains.And not tons of standby such as would be the case with coaches and sleeping cars. Again, it was a status symbol as well as a scenery tool. Greyhound and Trailways buses imitated the dome concept also with a second level just a few seats behind the driver.
It was almost entirely streamliners which had them. By "streamliner" I mean a train made up, or at least mostly made up, of lightweight material (often stainless steel, sometimes painted, sometimes not) which had a faster schedule than other passenger trains on the same route, stopped less and had more amenites==like domes.
Domes were heavily oriented toward the west coast. Not too much back east, the Baltimore and Ohio being at least one exception. Today's trains fans are well familiar with tunnel problems in New York. But seemingly there were more problems back then. I read once in an early 1950 TRAINS that domes had been considered for the Dixie Flagler between Chicago and Miami, but the Jacksonville station had problems. Obviously those problems got solved because in later years the Florida Special from NY to Miami had a dome sleeper from Richmond to Miami. Also, in later years, the City of Miami and the South Wind had domes from Chicago to Miami.
Most domes were on top of coaches but a train called The Train of Tomorrow ran from Seattle to Portland with coach seating domes on top of every car, I believe, including diner and lounge. That train did not stay around too long, for some reason. You can probably google it.
There were several domes which had lounge seating at the top. Diner domes with diner seating at the top first ran on the UP City of Los Angeles and City of Portland. I happen to personally think the dome diner and dome lounge UP built in the mid 50s was the finest preAmtrak equipment ever.
This was about the time the single level(with one large dome) El Capitan was reequipped as a high level train.
One of the things Amtrak did which was good was to think outside the box and scatter domes around the country more than the private passenger and freight railroads did. This was not so much for pure scenery as it was to let a greater percent of people all around the country find out how neat it is to ride above the scenery even when the scenery itself was not all that unique. Of course this helped Amtrak get critized for unmatched consists, but I think people will remember their neat dome ride longer than they will remember what different colors the cars on their train were painted.
There were domes on top of sleepers but sleeping cars rooms were never at the dome level. It took Amtrak to give us upstairs sleeping car rooms, one of the things I really like about Amtrak which no super duper train in the past had.
The inspiration for the dome car came from a railroad executive who was riding in the cab of a train through CZ Colorado scenery in the mid 40s. He said it was a shame for passengers to not see what he was seeing. There is or was a monument to the dome car somewhere on that route. The CZ was born in 1949 And it was all about domes. I suspect people today do not realize how the CZ stood out from the pack in its day. Today it is just "another Superliner". It was highly advertised in national publications as to being scheduled to see the best scenery in daylight. It was called "the most talked about train in the country",
The CP Canadian was built about 1955 and it was patterned heavily, oh so very heavily, after the original CZ. The competitor in Canada, CN's Super Continental, was a fine streamliner but not stainless steel thus did not resemble the Canadian and the CZ so much.
My first dome to ride was between Little Rock and Dallas on the Missouri Pacific (like Jim) Texas Eagle from Memphis to Texas. The small Memphis section and the much larger St Louis section joined at little Rock for points south.
My first dome just to see was on the Illinois Central Panama Limited stopping in Memphis overnight from New Orleans to Chicago. The nice porter let me get on for a few minutes, walk upstairs to the dome, wave down to daddy. We were visiting my sister while she lived in Memphis.
IMHO domes were still "special" in the 50s. Much as the Acela is special today.
One thing which might get lost in the generation gap here is this: domes were not just about scenery, they were also status symbols. That is, they were mostly just on the "best" trains, and not the podunk locals, for example, regardless of what scenery might be there in that time of day.
The above noted Panama Limited is a good example of this. Being honest there is not a lot of spectacular scenery between CHI and NOL and the Panama was a fast 16 hr overnight train. The most unique scenery is the waters approaching NOL. Yet the Panama was one of the finest trains in the land, very much like the 20th Century Limited and the Broadway, but somehow did not get as much publicity.
Sure, scenery did figure into it. For example, the CZ had five domes, the Super Chief had one and the Sunset limited had none.
Domes did not fall out of the trees like leaves. Compared to single level equipment there really were not a lot of domes. Just mostly on the super fancy trains.And not tons of standby such as would be the case with coaches and sleeping cars. Again, it was a status symbol as well as a scenery tool. Greyhound and Trailways buses imitated the dome concept also with a second level just a few seats behind the driver.
It was almost entirely streamliners which had them. By "streamliner" I mean a train made up, or at least mostly made up, of lightweight material (often stainless steel, sometimes painted, sometimes not) which had a faster schedule than other passenger trains on the same route, stopped less and had more amenites==like domes.
Domes were heavily oriented toward the west coast. Not too much back east, the Baltimore and Ohio being at least one exception. Today's trains fans are well familiar with tunnel problems in New York. But seemingly there were more problems back then. I read once in an early 1950 TRAINS that domes had been considered for the Dixie Flagler between Chicago and Miami, but the Jacksonville station had problems. Obviously those problems got solved because in later years the Florida Special from NY to Miami had a dome sleeper from Richmond to Miami. Also, in later years, the City of Miami and the South Wind had domes from Chicago to Miami.
Most domes were on top of coaches but a train called The Train of Tomorrow ran from Seattle to Portland with coach seating domes on top of every car, I believe, including diner and lounge. That train did not stay around too long, for some reason. You can probably google it.
There were several domes which had lounge seating at the top. Diner domes with diner seating at the top first ran on the UP City of Los Angeles and City of Portland. I happen to personally think the dome diner and dome lounge UP built in the mid 50s was the finest preAmtrak equipment ever.
This was about the time the single level(with one large dome) El Capitan was reequipped as a high level train.
One of the things Amtrak did which was good was to think outside the box and scatter domes around the country more than the private passenger and freight railroads did. This was not so much for pure scenery as it was to let a greater percent of people all around the country find out how neat it is to ride above the scenery even when the scenery itself was not all that unique. Of course this helped Amtrak get critized for unmatched consists, but I think people will remember their neat dome ride longer than they will remember what different colors the cars on their train were painted.
There were domes on top of sleepers but sleeping cars rooms were never at the dome level. It took Amtrak to give us upstairs sleeping car rooms, one of the things I really like about Amtrak which no super duper train in the past had.
The inspiration for the dome car came from a railroad executive who was riding in the cab of a train through CZ Colorado scenery in the mid 40s. He said it was a shame for passengers to not see what he was seeing. There is or was a monument to the dome car somewhere on that route. The CZ was born in 1949 And it was all about domes. I suspect people today do not realize how the CZ stood out from the pack in its day. Today it is just "another Superliner". It was highly advertised in national publications as to being scheduled to see the best scenery in daylight. It was called "the most talked about train in the country",
The CP Canadian was built about 1955 and it was patterned heavily, oh so very heavily, after the original CZ. The competitor in Canada, CN's Super Continental, was a fine streamliner but not stainless steel thus did not resemble the Canadian and the CZ so much.
spidersfan351
Train Attendant
I also saw it at CUS yesterday, and got a great photo on the way out while aboard a stopped Texas Eagle directly next to it. It looks beautiful!
I spoke to an Amtrak official on the ride west on the Cap Ltd, and he said it would be headed east on the cardinal at some point soon to run "regularly" on the Adirondack (I think that's it, whatever the usual one is) for the fall season. Yesterday it was attached to three Horizon coaches, and had a Food Svc car on the other side. I assume it came from Beech Grove on the Hoosier State?
Anyhow, he thought that Amtrak would likely announce when it would go into eastern service, but agreed that they don't always get it right.
Btw, I've ridden it on the back of the old Superliner Cardinal, and we agreed that it doesn't beat an SSL on a Superliner consist, unless in the front. The SSL is a remarkably well put together car, and if you take away being able to see over the train, it really cannot be beaten.
It'd be nice to have one today - Eagle is on a detour route from Texarkana to Gilmer due to a UP derailment, and we have two CCC's instead. Hoping to make Sas by midnight! Rolling thru Naples, TX now.
I spoke to an Amtrak official on the ride west on the Cap Ltd, and he said it would be headed east on the cardinal at some point soon to run "regularly" on the Adirondack (I think that's it, whatever the usual one is) for the fall season. Yesterday it was attached to three Horizon coaches, and had a Food Svc car on the other side. I assume it came from Beech Grove on the Hoosier State?
Anyhow, he thought that Amtrak would likely announce when it would go into eastern service, but agreed that they don't always get it right.
Btw, I've ridden it on the back of the old Superliner Cardinal, and we agreed that it doesn't beat an SSL on a Superliner consist, unless in the front. The SSL is a remarkably well put together car, and if you take away being able to see over the train, it really cannot be beaten.
It'd be nice to have one today - Eagle is on a detour route from Texarkana to Gilmer due to a UP derailment, and we have two CCC's instead. Hoping to make Sas by midnight! Rolling thru Naples, TX now.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
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Why they would send it on the Cardinal for use on the Adirondack beats me, since there is no way to get the Great Dome to New York, or from Washington DC to Albany in any straightforward way for that amtter. I'd imagine that it is the Lake Shore Limited that would do the honors of moving the Great Dome to Albany for use on the Adirondack.
abcnews
OBS Chief
It's been repainted and perhaps refurbished a bit. Ready for assignment on the Adirondack and then the Cardinal. Should be heading over to Albany soon.
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