SILVIS, Ill. — Railroading Heritage of Midwest America has begun restoration work on former Union Pacific café-diner-lounge No. 5016. RRHMA is advertising that tours of the car to see work in progress will be offered with the purchase of tickets to the Trains and Tractors event at Silvis Oct. 18 and 19. Plans are to restore the car to operating condition for future excursion train use.
No. 5016 was built one of 10 lunch counter café-lounge cars built by St. Louis Car Company between August 1959 and January 1960 numbered 5007 to 5016. They were constructed for use on the City of Portland and City of Los Angeles streamliners. It had a lunch counter with seating for eight, six tables, and 16 more seats in the lounge.
After the advent of Amtrak, the car was retired in May 1972. It had a varied history after that. It was sold to the Stockton Terminal & Eastern Railroad later in 1972, where it remained until it was donated to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Railroad Museum in 2003. In late 2003 it was sold to Rail Journeys West; then was resold to Empire Builder Private Cars the following year. The car was sold back to Union Pacific in 2004 for possible use in use in the Steam Program and moved to Cheyenne, Wyo. in 2005 where it was stored. It was donated to RRHMA and moved to Silvis in November 2022. Union Pacific has two identical cars in its business train fleet: it retained car No. 5015 and later named it Overland, and reacquired car 5011 in 1989 and named it City of Denver.
In addition to touring No. 5016, attendees at the Trains and Tractors event can take guided tours of the RRHMA shop and see restoration work on 4-6-6-4 No. 3985 and 2-10-2 No. 5511, take a steam train ride, see model trains and visit a variety of vendors. Tickets are $125 per person if purchased prior to the day of the event and $130 if purchased on the day of the event. Tickets can be purchased at the RRHMA website.
