Superliner (railcar)

The Superliner is a type of bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used by Amtrak, the national rail passenger carrier in the United States. Amtrak ordered the cars to replace older single-level cars on its long-distance trains in the Western United States. The design was based on the Budd Hi-Level vehicles, employed by the Santa Fe Railway on its ''El Capitan'' trains. Pullman-Standard built 284 cars, known as Superliner I, from 1975 to 1981; Bombardier Transportation built 195, known as Superliner II, from 1991 to 1996. The Superliner I cars were the last passenger cars built by Pullman.

Car types include coaches, dining cars, lounges, and sleeping cars. Most passenger spaces are on the upper level, which features a row of windows on both sides. The Sightseer Lounge observation cars have distinctive floor-to-ceiling windows on the upper level. Boarding is on the lower level; passengers climb up a center stairwell to reach the upper level.

The first Superliner I cars entered service in February 1979, with deliveries continuing through 1981. Amtrak assigned the cars to both long-distance and short-distance trains in the Western United States. The first permanent assignment, in October 1979, was to the Chicago–Seattle ''Empire Builder''. Superliner II deliveries began in 1993; the additional cars enabled the retirement of the aging Hi-Level cars and the assignment of Superliners to trains in the Eastern United States. Tunnel clearances prevent their use on the Northeast Corridor.

History

Background

On May 1, 1971, Amtrak assumed control of almost all private-sector intercity passenger rail service in the United States, with a mandate to reverse decades of decline. It retained about 184 of the 440 trains which had run the day before. To operate these trains, Amtrak inherited a fleet of 300 locomotives and 1,190 passenger cars, most of which dated from the 1940s and 1950s. No new sleeping cars had been built for service in the United States since 1955.

Conventional single-level cars made up most of Amtrak's inherited fleet, but it also included 73 Hi-Level cars from the Santa Fe. The Budd Company built these between 1954 and 1964; the bilevel design, with its superior views and smooth riding characteristics, was well-suited to the long distances in the west. Michael R. Weinman, who worked at the design firm Louis T. Klauder & Associates, recalled that when Amtrak issued a request for proposal (RFP) in 1973 for a "totally new" passenger car, it "was assumed" that the design would be bilevel. Thirteen companies responded to the RFP; Amtrak selected the Klauder proposal. The design was finished by mid-1974 and Amtrak invited four companies to bid on its construction: Boeing, Budd, Pullman-Standard, and Rohr. Pullman-Standard won the contract.

Superliner I

Amtrak ordered 235 Superliner I cars from Pullman-Standard on April 2, 1975, with deliveries scheduled for between January 1977 and June 1978. The order then consisted of 120 coaches, 55 sleepers, 34 diners, and 26 lounges. Amtrak soon increased the order to 284 cars: it added 30 coaches, 15 sleepers, 5 diners, and deleted 1 lounge. The initial order cost $143.6 million; with the additional cars and other payments the cost rose to $250 million.

The railroad asked its employees to name the new cars, and announced the winning entry in its internal newsletter of June 1, 1977: "Vistaliner", harkening back to the Vista-Domes of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. But the newsletter went on to note that the name was already under copyright by another company, and so the cars would be dubbed "Superliners", a name created by Needham, Harper & Steers, then Amtrak's advertising agency.

As the cars arrived in 1978 and 1979, Amtrak put them into use on short-haul routes radiating from Chicago. The first coaches entered regular service on February 26, 1979, running from Chicago to Milwaukee. The coaches, led by an EMD F40PH locomotive, displaced the regular Turboliner equipment. The equipment continued to operate on the run for several weeks. The '' Illini'' and ''Shawnee'' trains received Superliner coaches soon after; the first Superliner dining car ran on the ''Shawnee'' as a lounge.

Equipping the fleet

A public unveiling took place at Union Station in Chicago on October 11, 1979, followed by a short trip over the Burlington Northern Railroad to Lisle. The following day, the ''Shawnee'' had the dubious distinction of the first Superliner accident, a collision with an Illinois Central Gulf Railroad freight train at Harvey, IL, which claimed the lives of 2 crew members of the freight train.

Amtrak's first choice for Superliner assignments had been the financially troubled '' Floridian'', a Chicago–Florida long-distance train, but the two years' delay in delivery scuppered these plans. Amtrak turned next to the ''Empire Builder''. This long-distance train ran between Chicago and Seattle through the plains of Montana and North Dakota. Winters in that part of the United States are harsh, featuring both blizzards and cold temperatures. Traditional steam-heated equipment often broke down, causing Amtrak to cancel service. The Superliners, with their electrical head-end power, were far better suited for the conditions. The ''Empire Builder'' became the first long-distance train to use Superliners, and the first train permanently assigned them, on October 28, 1979. Amtrak's new national timetable depicted a Superliner coach on the front cover, and the listing for the ''Empire Builder'' carried a heading which read "Amtrak's Superliner is Special." At the same time, Superliners entered service on the short-haul ''Pacific International'' and ''Mount Rainier'' in the Pacific Northwest.

With the ''Empire Builder'' in operation, Amtrak began re-equipping the remaining long-distance trains in the west. The second permanent Superliner train was the ''Desert Wind'', then a day train between Los Angeles and Ogden, Utah, which gained coaches on June 30, 1980. The ''San Francisco Zephyr'', a long-distance train on the traditional Overland Route between Chicago and San Francisco, followed on July 7, 1980; it received the first of the Sightseer lounges on January 6, 1981. Amtrak assigned Superliners to another long-distance train, the Los Angeles–Chicago '' Southwest Limited'', in October 1980. The ''Southwest Limited'', formerly the ''Super Chief'', traveled the same route as the ''El Capitan'', whose Hi-Level cars had inspired the design. The management of the Santa Fe, impressed by the design, permitted Amtrak to restore the name ''Chief'' to the train, and Amtrak renamed it the ''Southwest Chief'' on October 28, 1984. The ''Chief'' was the first train to receive Superliner II sleeping cars in September 1993.

The ''Coast Starlight'' began operating with Superliners in January 1981. The '' Sunset Limited'', a long-distance train running along the southern border of the United States between Los Angeles and New Orleans, gained them in February, resulting in a commendation from the Texas State Legislature. The ''Pioneer'' gained Superliner coaches on April 26. The ''Eagle'', an overnight train between San Antonio and Chicago, began carrying Superliners in October on those days it connected with the ''Sunset Limited'' in San Antonio. Superliner assignments became permanent in the 1990s. Amtrak estimated that reequipping a train with Superliners boosted ridership on it by 25%. The last car of the order, a sleeper delivered in July 1981, was also the last car ever built by Pullman, and was named in honor of the company's founder, George Mortimer Pullman.

In the mid-1980s Canada's Via Rail contemplated replacing its aging Budd-built steam-heated cars with Superliners. The order would have consisted of 130 cars, valued at , to be built by a consortium of Bombardier Transportation and the Urban Transportation Development Corporation. Via tested several Amtrak Superliners in revenue service between Edmonton and Winnipeg in 1984–85. Ultimately Via chose to rebuild its Budd cars to use head end power (HEP) instead of ordering new equipment.

Superliner II

Amtrak ordered 140 Superliner II cars from Bombardier Transportation in 1991; Bombardier had acquired the Superliner patents after Pullman-Standard's closure. The order consisted of 55 sleeping cars, 38 coaches, 20 dining cars, 15 lounges, and 12 transition-dormitory cars. The initial order cost $340 million, and included an option for 39 additional cars. In late 1993 Amtrak exercised the option for 55 cars at a cost of $110 million, bringing the total order of Superliner II cars to 195. The option included ten dining cars, ten lounges, and 35 transdorms. Bombardier built the order in Barre, Vermont.

The new order allowed the displacement of the remaining Hi-Level cars as well as the employment of Superliners on trains running with single-level cars. Amtrak converted three eastern long-distance trains to Superliners: the Chicago–New Orleans ''City of New Orleans

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