I was a teenager back in the late 70's...every summer I would ride the Sunset Limited from Houston, TX to Alpine, TX to visit relatives. When walking from car to car, I very clearly remember the Superliner Coach cars having a high level door on one end of the car, and stairs down to a low level door on the other end. All the photos and models that I see of those cars have upper level doors on both ends...how can this be?
Just a guess, but it's possible that was a transition car, which was placed between double-level cars and normal single-level cars. I believe that Santa-Fe developed them when the double-level cars were first used with the Super-Chief and/or El Capitan. I hope a Santa-Fe expert will chime in on this thread.
The car you are thinking of is the transition dorm. Santa Fe had these type of cars first. They were the fore runners to the superliners. The lower vestibule door were dutch doors. I saw one of these a couple of years ago. It had been purchased from Amtrak and turned into private car. It was a transition car. Difference from modern transition cars is that it dropped straight instead of the newer ones that have the stairs that curve around and down. The newer transition dorms are superliner II's built in the 90's.
If you want to see some still in service go take a look at the coast starlight. They are running the old parlor cars still.
No, these were not the Transition Dorm cars...these were Superliner Coach cars. This is what I remember. I had to sit in the front Coach car because when the train reached Alpine, the only way to get on/off the train was from that car. The forward end of the first Coach car had the stairs leading down, it was always roped off "crew only". When I walked back through the train to get to the car with the snack bar, the rear end of the first Coach had doors on the upper level...when I got to the rear of the second Coach car, I had to go down the steps, through the diaphraghm and back up steps in the front of the third Coach car...the rear end of the third coach car had doors on the upper level. I never went all the way to the rear of the train, but from the outside, I do not recall ever seeing any single level cars. ...or have I gone crazy? LOL
There were many styles of cars. I still hear stories of the old santa fe coaches that had the attendants room downstairs. So I don't doubt that they were coaches. The one that I did see was a dorm sleeper and still had the amtrak beds in place.
Someone once told me that it could have been an ex-SantaFe Hi-Level Coach (Chair Car???) that had been refurbished by Amtrak. Supposedly some of those cars had a upper level door on one end and a lower level door on the other end. The question I have about that theory is...would those refurbished ex-SantaFe cars have "Superliner" painted on the outside? Again, I am going by memory, and as I recall, the entire train (with the exception of the baggage car) were Superliner cars...or at least they were all bi-level cars and all had "Superliner" painted on the outside. The reason I am asking, I want to model the Sunset Limited from the time when I used to ride it...I want to try to make is as accurate as possible
Even to me (and I'm no expert), your descriptions sound like Santa Fe high-level cars, not Superliners. The two did often run together, and are often confused. http://www.hebners.net/amtrak/amtHILEV.html The upgraded Santa Fe cars weren't Superliners and weren't lettered as such.
Thank You to everyone who replied to my question. You were correct that the cars I remember were not Superliners, they were ex-Santa Fe hi-level coach cars. This was confirmed for me when I did a little research on the dates the first Superliner cars were placed in service. I also noticed that InterMountain Rail has some new Hi-Level Coaches in Amtrak paint available soon. Life is good!
The transition cars that had coach seats are old Santa Fe High level cars. Most of them were retired and sold but some of the ended up in service on the OK City-Fort Worth service. I road in these cars when I lived in Malta Montana and worked as the weekend agent in Wolf Point Montana.
