Length of train and sleeper car numbers

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
M

McLeansvilleAppFan

OBS Chief
AU Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
535
Location
Greensboro, NC
I had a chance to grab a video of the Crescent 20 at the platform this morning.

Two engines, 3 coach class cars, cafe, sleeper 2010, then sleeper 2011 then bag dorm 2012. Car 2012 would imply 12 cars on the train, including the engines in the count. Amtrak is jumping from car 7 to car 10 now. Would the other cars have been coaches at one time and reduced coach car availability made trains shorter or is lack of demand having Amtrak remove coach cars now? Obviously the car number is not important as it need not be a consecutive numbering system. Having a consistent numbering system for reservations is what matters and the current numbering system would allow for adding a few coaches and dinners, without messing up the sleeper car number at the end of the train.

So with that said, how long was the Crescent in historical days before Amtrak and then what was the consist, length wise, after 1979?

I measured the Charlotte station platform on Google Earth and it is much longer than anything built or rebuilt now and that includes what will be the new station at Charlotte someday. So I am thinking the Crescent pre-Amtrak was considerably longer. Greensboro's platform for the Crescent is longer than the Carolinian/Piedmont platform, though the Crescent is not much longer as presently built.

Are trains with sleepers in the front also numbered with a double digit for the car number or would it be 501 and 502 or something for train 5 sleeper 1 and sleeper 2?

EDIT: I added the "?" as needed.
 
Last edited:
No you’re getting it wrong.

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/line-numbers-consist-listings.32610/

There is no particular reason or rhyme to the numbering system. Generally a sleeper number is based on how far it’s away from the dinner. First sleeper can be 10 car or the 11 car. Depending on which train your on.

The inconsistencies on how it is labeled might have some traditional reason or not.
 
Just-Thinking-51 said:
No you’re getting it wrong.

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/line-numbers-consist-listings.32610/

There is no particular reason or rhyme to the numbering system. Generally a sleeper number is based on how far it’s away from the dinner. First sleeper can be 10 car or the 11 car. Depending on which train your on.

The inconsistencies on how it is labeled might have some traditional reason or not.
Click to expand...
Thanks for digging up that old thread from 14 years ago. One of the things about an older message board is the history it contains.

Without a dinner on the Crescent I feel like we are trying to now do math that is akin to dividing by zero. Another reason and maybe the most important reason to bring back a dinner car for the Crescent.
🤣
 
McLeansvilleAppFan said:
Thanks for digging up that old thread from 14 years ago. One of the things about an older message board is the history it contains.

Without a dinner on the Crescent I feel like we are trying to now do math that is akin to dividing by zero. Another reason and maybe the most important reason to bring back a dinner car for the Crescent.
🤣
Click to expand...
Sitting in the dinner is a highlight of most trips.
The food quality is keep people away. That said the YouTubers are taken more meals in there cabins it seems.
 
Just-Thinking-51 said:
Sitting in the dinner is a highlight of most trips.
The food quality is keep people away. That said the YouTubers are taken more meals in there cabins it seems.
Click to expand...
At this point YouTubers or not, we have to take our meals in the rooms. I have had some very nice interactions years ago and hate that can't happen now. It is nice to have an option but right now we don't have that either.

So back to the other question-How long was the Crescent decades ago?
 
SOU RR was very flexible with its consists even after Amtrak started. This link show how SOU ran a basic train. However, SOU's main car overhaul facility was in Atlanta. Any additional cars needed would be added to this consist up to 18 cars but only 13 - 14 or less scheduled north of WASH. Of course, one direction would not be full, but SOU always had all cars open so light direction passengers could spread out.

If demand was even higher SOU scheduled an Advance Crescent that only operated WASH and south. The advance section could often arrive WASH or ATL early. Never confirmed it but heard that a 3rd section was operated often for school patrol Charters usually with heavy weight cars. All trains always had a diner. Only 1st sections had usually had 4 - E locos. Other sections would have various Steam generator Fs or occasionally Heater cars.

http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track1/crescent197303.html
 
15 Revenue passenger cars in the above video. Even when Amtrak operating the train in the 1980s it met demand not cut demand by taking away capacity and making the schedule not good for ATL <> WAS. Look at the SOU schedules in post #6 compared to today's schedule.
 
I have a note of the Crescent in the 60’s - 8 sleepers leaving Washington including the 2DR-MBR-lounge. In addition to the streamlined coaches it often had some green, superbly maintained, heavyweight coaches. But it was all Pullman Charlotte-Atlanta. The Southerner, operating a couple hours behind, could handle coach passengers between those points.

My best memory of the Crescent before Amtrak was standing trackside as it came through Burke Station, VA at track speed with the green class lights lit (second section following). I took good service for granted on two Crescent trips - Wilmington to New Orleans and another CHarlotte to Flomaton, AL.
 
west point said:
SOU RR was very flexible with its consists even after Amtrak started. This link show how SOU ran a basic train. However, SOU's main car overhaul facility was in Atlanta. Any additional cars needed would be added to this consist up to 18 cars
Click to expand...
18 cars not counting the engines would be about 1500 feet long and the Charlotte platform as measured on Google Earth is about 1500 feet long. Coincidence, I think not. As I continue to work, slowly, measuring all the platforms it will be interesting to see if any existing platforms from pre-Amtrak were about the same length as Charlotte. Greensboro has a platform of 1200 feet long and was redone early 2000s. I am not sure what the original length would have been but there was 3 platforms instead of two.
 
I only rode the Crescent once in the 80s, and my fuzzy memory says something like 3 sleepers and 5 coaches (with a full diner and lounge in between) is about right -- really nice coaches, too, 46-seat Heritage coaches, with recline distance and leg rests at least as good as the Superliners, and far better than Amfleet II. That'd come to 12 cars, with a baggage and dormitory car, more if there were MHCs as in the videos above.

The Silvers and the Broadway did run up to 18 cars still in the 80s.

As to the car numbers, even in pre-Amtrak days those were not simply numbered front-to-back; each railroad had a different system, sometimes quite an intricate one, so that a ticket agent would know how many of each type of berth were in a sleeper and what days a particular car would run. Being a Westerner I don't know what the Southern used --- I attach two 1950s examples for the Canadian and the North Coast Limited showing car numbers.

Amtrak has still not standardized nationwide; out west the sleepers still get numbered from xx30 (nearest the diner) as in the linked thread, so the Seattle half of the Empire Builder will be 0732(dorm) 0731 0730 (sleepers) diner 0711 (coach), front to back.
 

Attachments

  • np54.JPG
    np54.JPG
    285.4 KB · Views: 0
  • cp53.JPG
    cp53.JPG
    304.9 KB · Views: 0
If you think car numbering is slightly confused now the legacy RR numbering was really a hodge podge. For SOU RR trains along the present Crescent route would usually start from NYP with a SRxx. SOU trains with N&W usually started with a Nxx. ACL trains usually with a Cxx, Florida special FSxx, FEC originators Fxx, L&N Lxx, NC&SL Kxx, interchanging fC car numberingMainly trains sleepers and reserved coaches more than one RR used letters.
Just look at SOU's Timetable for seemingly no rhyme or reason.

Western RRs usually used only numbers but do not bet on it. D&RGW used Dxxx. BN various.
Only an official guide would really tell as many public timetables did not list the car numbers

https://streamlinermemories.info/South/SOU52TT.pdf
 
Small lines sometimes omitted car numbers in their Guide listing. After WWII when they said "Sleeping cars" that usually meant that one was assigned, but sometimes extra cars were added. But the Guide won't always help with that.

In the 1940's the Soo Line's "premiere" train pulled out of Grand Central Station (not grand and not central) with one sleeper each to the Twin Cities, Duluth, and Ashland shown in the Guide. However, a friend of my dad's had been a Soo traffic department staffer and recalled adding sleepers on Friday nights outbound and Sunday nights inbound when Chicagoans escaped city heat. This didn't show in the Guide.

In this century has Amtrak ever added less than daily sleepers on a predictable basis? (Not including tours or other groups.)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top