The consist will feature three Amtrak diesel locomotives and 29 private cars. Similar to the New River Train in recent years, there will be no Amtrak cars. Various classes of service will be available, including coach, deluxe coach, lounge, private suites, dome cars, and chairman class cars.
Many of the privately owned cars that once made up the New River consist will return, but a few private cars will stand out with the 2019 consist. The Milwaukee Road Cedar Rapids will serve as an eastbound tail car, while the Pennsylvania Railroad Frank Thompson will serve as the westbound tail car. Both cars are chairman’s class cars and have not operated on the New River Train in recent history.
Similarly, Northern Pacific No. 549, a Budd short dome will make its excursion debut on the Autumn Colors Express consist in 2019 and the California Zephyr Silver Palace car is another new face joining the consist. There are a total of seven dome cars that will be made available for the three-day trips this fall.
The most notable difference will be six Budd-built self-propelled vehicles, or SPVs, that were originally constructed with cabs and traction motors. These recently restored passenger cars resemble Amtrak’s Amfleet-style cars and will be part of the coach class service. Originally used in Northeastern commuter rail service, the Autumn Colors Express will serve as their first introduction to excursion service as Amtrak-certified cars.
Autumn Colors Express excursions will depart from Huntington on Oct. 25-27, 2019. Tickets went on sale on Monday, Aug. 5. More information is available online.
http://www.autumncolorexpresswv.com
Craig, Richard Anderson seems to be trying to turn Amtrak into an airline on rails, but yet he wants to retire the Amfleets which resemble airplanes. Maybe Amtrak’s next coach order to replace the Amfleets should have large windows and flat sides.
But the six renovated coaches NS had for the newer steam program had very large windows. But, sometime in 2017 after the last 611 mainline excursions, NS put them on the auction block and they went to places like Alaska, Spencer, NC (NCTM) and somewhere else. NS apparently wants nothing to do with public excursions anymore, and neither does Amtrak. But, this Autumn Colors Express which runs on CSX track apparently is an exception. CSX isn’t very excursion friendly either. I guess Amtrak is allowing this excursion to run (and providing diesel power) but not others. Most class 1’s aren’t, they are in business to haul freight and make a profit for their shareholders. The days of class 1 railroad operated excursion programs are over, except for what UP does and the various tourist lines and regional railroads that operate excursions, like Iowa Interstate and Reading and Northern. Apparently these railroads don’t view passenger trains and steam as a risk and liability like class 1’s do.
If I were you Jim. I wouldn’t be holding my breath on Amtrak getting new dome cars. We’re lucky that we have Superliner SightSeer Lounge Cars.
Regarding ex NP Dome Coach 549, I’m glad that it will be painted Northern Pacific colors.
I’m curious about the interior. The car was owned by the late Mike Gelhaus, a dear friend of mine.
It was the only ex NP dome to have its interior art work intact and the original sleepy hollow seats. I see the dome seating was changed.
Does the downstairs still have the original NP artwork?
Mike Lustig
I was working in Amtrak’s mechanical department in New Haven, CT, when the SPV’s came online in the spring of 1980. SPV stands for “Self-Propelled Vehicle”; they are in essence very comparable with the Amfleet I cars, with a control cab at each end. The windows are the same size as the Amfleet I cars – a bit larger than the “rifle-slit windows” Blair Kooistra referred to; and yes, nowhere near the size of windows on the good old varnish. The original idea was for them to be cut off of, or added onto, NE Corridor trains, so as to provide one-seat service between points west/south of New Haven, and points on the Hartford/Springfield (MA) line; but in very short order their unreliability came to the fore, many times on the east/northbound runs they would drop dead not long after leaving New Haven, necessitating rescue by a diesel locomotive dispatched out of Motor Storage. It was the late Bob Rice, who was noted in New Haven for his anachronisms and spoonerisms, who I heard first refer to the SPV’s as “Seldom Propelled Vehicles” … also in 1980!
See the New River Gorge through the rifle-slit windows of a Metroliner coach!
The SPVs were meant to be the next-generation RDCs. Their unreliability was legendary causing some to refer to them as “Seldom Powered Vehicles”.
@George: The SPVs are the Metroliner/Amfleet shells. There are pictures of them on the excursion’s website: click “Coach Cars” on the “Train Cars” menu. In fact, it looks like the the SPVs are being used exclusively for the lowest class of service (Coach), probably because their windows are so small relative to the older cars.
I’d spend the extra $50 to upgrade to Deluxe Coach class to get the larger pre-Amfleet windows and less claustrophobic interior. The Metroliner/Amfleet interiors feel like they were designed to mimic the feel of jetliner interiors, likely courtesy of some misguided last ditch attempt in the 1960s to make trains attractive to the jet set!
What Budd SPV’s? Sounds like Metroliner shells. Yes? No?
Domes have been a enticement since inception. Amtrak needs to build new ones.