#burlington zephyr

[kodachrome-net]

Burlington Zephyr, 2015

[ultraozzie3000]

A Tadpole on Wheels

Above: British architect Norman Foster's 2010 recreation of R. Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car. (Wikipedia) Despite the limitations of 1930s technology, a few architects and designers were hell-bent on building a streamlined future that until then was mostly the stuff of movies and science fiction magazines. May 5, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin. One of them was R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983),…

[emeraldexplorer2]

the California Zephyr 1964

[littlewestern]

EMD E5 9912A ("Silver Meteor") drawn by Charles Schultz for the Snoopy Railroad Trains Coloring Book from 1980.

[aryburn-trains]

Nebraska Zephyr Observation Car at Union Station. Chicago, IL 1963

[alightinthelantern]

Parlor-Observation car "Juno" on the Nebraska Zephyr, a daytime passenger train operated daily by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) between Chicago, Illinois and Lincoln, Nebraska. Beginning operation in 1947, the train was typical of streamlined trains of the postwar period in that its carbodies were built of stainless steel and featured an all-silver exterior, the trademark of the Budd Company, but it was also notable in that it continued the CB&Q's unusual tradition, which began in the 1930s, of articulated, unified trainsets, with all passenger cars in each consist sharing bogies (wheel-trucks) and permanently coupled together.

The Nebraska Zephyr operated once-daily in each direction, with Westbound #11 departing Chicago at 12:45 PM and arriving in Lincoln at 10:30 PM, while Eastbound #12 departed Lincoln at 11:00 AM and arrived in Chicago at 8:45 PM. The 551-mile (887 km) trip took 9 hours and 45 minutes, and its average speed was 56 miles per hour (90 km/h) including stops. Service utilized two trainsets which each operated one direction on day and the opposite direction the next. One trainset's cars bore the names of Roman female gods, and was nicknamed "the train of the goddesses" (Venus, Vesta, Minerva, Psyche, Ceres, Diana, and Juno), while the other trainset's cars were named for male Roman gods, and was nicknamed "the train of the gods" (Apollo, Mars, Neptune, Cupid, Vulcan, Mercury, and Jupiter). The trainsets were in fact built by the Budd Company back in 1936 as the second pair of Twin Zephyrs, for CB&Q service between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, making them some of the first stainless-steel trainsets built by Budd, and as such they initially bore the same style of locomotive as the other CB&Q Zephyrs from the 1930s, of a smooth, semicircular front curving seamlessly into the roofline at its top, but these locomotives were later replaced with the stainless-steel-bodied, shovel-nosed diesel locomotives of the 1950s which all the CB&Q's Zephyr trains later received.

Each of the Nebraska Zephyr's two trainsets consisted of several coaches and parlor cars, a coach-dinette, dining car, cocktail lounge, and parlor-observation car. The parlor-observation car on "the train of the gods" was named Jupiter, while its goddess counterpart was named Juno. The locomotives were named Pegasus (CB&Q #9904) and Zephyrus (CB&Q #9905). The trains were generously appointed and provided comfortable travel throughout the 1940s and '50s, and the high level of service was maintained until 1963, when the cocktail lounges were removed in favor of additional seating. In 1966 the dining cars were rebuilt as "cafeteria cars" with vending machines for additional cost-cutting. The aging trainsets were retired from service entirely in 1968, although CB&Q continued to operate the Nebraska Zephyr train with other rolling stock until 1971, when the newly-birthed Amtrak took over all remaining passenger rail service in the US.

[stone-cold-groove]

Tenth anniversary of the Pioneer Zephyr. First diesel streamline train in America - 1944.

[danbrekke]

Dispatch From '73: Chicago to Oakland on the San Francisco Zephyr (Part 1)

'The train rolls out slow from Chicago's center, and gathers speed through the West Side. The afternoon is cloudy and is turning dark as you enter the Prairie, past the grey, dirty town of Aurora.'

I arrived in the Bay Area for the first time 50 years ago this month. I was 18 and had never been more than a few miles west of the Mississippi River. On summer evenings sometimes I’d see clouds building in the west and thought maybe that’s what the Rockies might look like on the horizon. After working for eight months at my first job — as a copyboy at Chicago Today — and saving most of what I…

[djangodurango]

for the WIP ask game... The Future Is Still Silver and Black? (original train fiction from you two sounds really interesting!)

So last year, I went up north to visit Ray. Ray lives in Chicago, which just so happens to have the largest railway museum in the United States, the Illinois Railway Museum.

At the IRM, we saw the Nebraska Zephyr, which is a streamlined stainless steel articulated trainset. Each of the cars in this train are named after Greek/Roman goddesses. Venus, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, and Juno. It's really quite striking. And the train is pulled by an EMD E5 (the only surviving E5 in fact) named Silver Pilot.

The next day we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. There we saw the Pioneer Zephyr, the first of the Burlington Zephyrs.

So after we get out of the MSI, we're sitting in the Metra station, waiting for the train, and we're doing Independent Research on our phones. Because the concept of the Nebraska Zephyr is great, right? Five beautiful cars all named after goddesses. And that is when we learn that Silver Pilot did not originally belong to this train.

"Those aren't even his bitches," Ray said to me.

So over the next few months, we did more Independent Research. And every new piece of information we found about Silver Pilot just made his story even better. The whole thing is fuckin' wild and we had to DIG to find almost all of it. It's insane because the engine has this amazing story - a story that Ray often points out would sound contrived if it wasn't true - and apparently no one has cared until a pair of fucking cunt dorks went to the train museum.

Comparatively, the Pioneer Zephyr was easy to find more about. Its history is extremely well-documented and lots of people in the past have been fucking cunt dorks about that train. The thing about the Pioneer Zephyr though is that it was made in the early 30's, right? And Burlington promoted this train in a way almost... vaudevillian. It broke the land speed rail record on its way to its debut at the 1934 World's Fair (outdoing its competitor from the Union Pacific, M-10000 only a couple months after it broke the record), it went on an exhibition tour, there were commemorative letter covers given for its service milestones, there was a ride-on children's toy made of it, it starred in a movie!

So me and Ray were now thoroughly enthralled by these two separate but related trains and how different their service lives were - and continue to be - when we get an idea.

We'd considered the idea of trains writing letters to each other before, but it's a little human for them in general, particularly for working engines who are busy. Although I was quite pleased when I was able to report to Ray that there was indeed an episode of TTTE where Thomas sends Percy a postcard.

But these guys are both preserved and while Pilot still works, the IRM is only really open on weekends. They got time. They have people with hands who can read and write who also have time.

DJ: Oh, what if they send each other letters? Ain't like they've got anything else going on. Ray: c2c. I was thinking about them being pen pals. Especially since they live so close, the letters don't take long to arrive. They can be short and sweet. DJ: Gives them something to look forward to. Ray: You can send some a few times a year and not be overwhelming with the information.

Which was all well and good, but then I found something practically serendipitous. A sign that this was the way to go.

So remember how Pioneer had all these publicity stunts and events done for it? On its tenth anniversary, they made a six foot birthday cake and rigged up an eight-foot-long knife such that the train could pull forward, break a ribbon, and cut its own birthday cake.

Most of this cake was given to veteran and child hospital patients, but individual pieces were also sent off to each of Pioneer's "brothers" and a hundred-ish other fellow streamliners across the country.

With a letter.

DJ: Raymond. There's a train letter IN the Pioneer Zephyr book. FROM the Pioneer Zephyr. About his birthday party. Although he does say in it that he only has brothers. Ray: OH MY GOD. How did we know??? Are we just that fucking good???? Do we just know and perceive the truth THAT well. DJ: It's too fucking cute. Ray: The fact that he is a he and also says he has brothers is revolutionary. That almost strains the limits of credulity, knowing how Train Guys are about calling engines "she". But I know you would not lie to me about this. Can you scan it?????

The fucking train actually, canonically, wrote a letter.

So yeah, the trains are pen pals. And they write to each other about their past and but moreso about their present. Because as it happens, their history post-preservation is interesting too (as I'm sure you can relate) and there's far less said about it already.

The first batch of letters are done, we're just getting some other materials together before we can publish.

EDIT: people are reblogging this again so just editing to add that you can read the train letters here.

[identifyingtrainsinposts]

hi do you take requests for id that arent actually posts? im watching the x files and i Think the train car that gets decoupled is from the pioneer zephyr family of trains, but im not sure.

heres the best pictures i got

and heres some crappy dark ones

thanks in advance!

My boy... that is a Budd Company - RDC-2

If I've ever seen one.

RDC stands for Rail Diesel Car. That means it can move around on its own. Presumably it's being used as a railcar here cause it looks like one and it can control itself for whatever tomfoolery happens in the show. Curiously the windows have been plated over. I guess they did that for the show. As for the Pioneer Zephyr connection... they were made by the same company! Everything Budd got their hands on was made of stainless steel though. I hesitate to call them related. Zephyrs have a dedicated power car and the earlier ones have semi-permanently coupled cars. The RDCs are easier to work with… every car is a power car so you can just slap more on if need be.

(Side tangent, The Pioneer Zephyr is just the first one made. Burlington Route named all their trainsets of that style the [X] Zephyr. Really the Zephyrs deserve their own post, they're great fun!)

[guerrerense]

Burlington over Byron por Mike Danneman Por Flickr: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy EMD E5 No. 9911-A and the Nebraska Zephyr Budd-built streamliner trainset curves over the top of Byron Hill at Byron, Wisconsin, on September 30, 1993. This classy Zephyr from the Illinois Railway Museum collection made a somewhat uncommon off-site trip for an ARM convention running on the Wisconsin Central main line from Burlington to Neenah and return. Out on the high iron like this, the train almost looks like a Zephyr of old, racing west through a midwestern countryside.

[greatwesternway]

Traintober Day 3: Twins - 9901 and 9902

An excerpt from the upcoming installment of The Future is Still Silver and Black:

I hesitate to guess at what 9901 would say to being told he was special for not having a name though. I suspect his manners would have failed him.

He and 9902 were a little unlucky to be built when they were. They weren’t first so they didn’t get the benefit of it that I did and they came too early to be themed the way The Mark Twain Zephyr was. Then they got bumped from their route by Pegasus and Zephyrus’ larger, themed trains. Those two became the New Twin Cities Zephyrs and the original twins were given their own separate routes. 9901 wasn’t very happy about it because while he was getting his own route, this was also just after my train had been given our new name. I think most engines would be satisfied to have a named route at all, but with us Zephyrs and how many names we’ve all been given between us, it becomes a sticky subject if you’ve come out short. 9902 was just happy to be able to accommodate his demand again. He was always the more sensible of the two of them.

They were twins, but I do not think this is similar to having a B-unit. 9901 and 9902 only ever operated together on exhibition runs before they entered revenue service. The day before their christening, they did one with forty-four sets of twins riding their trains to Chicago, one half of each pair on each train. Once they were in service though, I don’t imagine they saw much of each other. They’d run the route from opposite ends twice a day, so they’d only have had brief passings.

After Pegasus and Zephyrus took over The Twin Cities Zephyr route, 9901 was sent to Texas to work on the Burlington-Rock Island to pull their Sam Houston Zephyr. From what I heard, he became much less crabby about names when he was actually working a route of his own. You’d hope it’d be the pride of having a named route all to himself that turned him around, but I wonder if it wasn’t actually because he got that special nose herald that said “Sam Houston Zephyr” instead of “Burlington Route”. You know how important identity is for us Zephyrs, after all. 

9902 got an “Alton-Burlington” nose herald for his Ozark State Zephyr in Missouri until they sent him down to the B-RI too. He and 9901 had to share routes again, but they had two between them so it wasn’t such a debacle as it had been when they were both The Twin Cities Zephyr. One of them would be the Sam Houston Zephyr and the other would be the Texas Rocket, with nose heralds to show which.

Unfortunately, the B-RI wasn’t taking as good care of them as Burlington itself would have. From what I gathered over time (because you know how cagey our people can be when things go wrong), 9901 had a lot of oil build-up under his trucks and something set it on fire. They couldn’t get the blaze under control and 9901 was burnt inside and out, completely irreparable. I mentioned before that this was right after that FT smashed into my observation car 570. Because 9901 had to be stricken from the roster but his cars were only a little burnt, they thought to replace my observation car with his. They decided not to do that in the end and instead his cars were kept in storage in case I, 9902, or Injun Joe might need them on our trains.

After all that, B-RI ended up giving 9902 back to Burlington to replace 9901. And ironically, he ended up with a route named just for him! No one ever mentions it really, but he was given a route between Chicago and Ottumwa, Iowa and they called it the Zephyr 9902. When they moved him to the Chicago-Hannibal route, they renamed it Zephyr 9902 too so it was almost like it was his train that had the name. I think if 9901 had still been around for that, he’d have been so jealous he’d have gone up in flames again. But they also sometimes nicknamed 9902 the “Baby Zephyr” because of how big the Denver and California Zephyr trains were by then so maybe not!

I am being told that I have gone on very long about 9901 and 9902, but I almost feel obliged. They get overlooked, but how would we have known we needed a train as grand as yours for that route without their shorter trains on it first? They had the same problem I always did, that our train became too popular to fit everyone who wanted to ride.

[emeraldexplorer2]

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy E8A 9947-A departs Chicago Union Station with the California Zephyr on May 13, 1963.

[littlewestern]

The Way of The Zephyrs 1934-1971. by Terry Spirek

Via Flickr:

The era of the silver steeds that pulled the Burlington's commuter and cross country passenger train known as the Zephyrs.

[aryburn-trains]

1953 American Royal Zephyr (Update to 2016 gif) Chicago to Kansas City Burlington Route The consist includes two E7As, two havelock baggage cars, a 50-seat coach, a dome coach lounge, a 6 Sect - 6 Rmt - 4 DBR sleeper, a 10 Rmt - 6 DBR sleeper, a 6 Sect - 6 Rmt - 4 DBR sleeper and a 50-seat coach. The gifs used were made by me and can be found at the link below. They have my name in the description. http://kenstransitgifs.com/gifindex.html

[grantgfan]

Howdy, Mirabelle.

Did you know that the Burlington Route’s slogan was “Way of the Zephyrs”?

mirabelle: i know