17 Jun 2012 08:17
RE: Skyline cars under CP operation
See comments below Don Thomas _____ From: Canadian-Passenger-Rail@... [mailto:Canadian-Passenger-Rail@...] On Behalf Of Lyman Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 5:15 PM To: Canadian-Passenger-Rail@... Subject: [CanPassRail] Skyline cars under CP operation I am hoping that someone can help answer some questions about the Skyline cars while under CP operation. My understanding is that VIA took over the operation of CP non-commuter passenger trains in October 1978 (or was it 1979?) so my questions would pertain to prior to that time. Perhaps the article by Doug Smith in the 1995 Canadian Rail Passenger Yearbook mentioned by Tom Box in post 68465 would contain many of these answers and I need to get a copy of that. As I understand it the Skyline dome cars, as received from the Budd Co., were of uniform configuration. They contained a coach section with 26 seats, a coffee shop section at the base of the dome stairs, a small kitchen, and a dome section. At some point there were modifications to some of the Skyline cars as follows: 1. The original dome seats on at least two Skyline cars used on the Atlantic Limited were removed and replaced with "walkover" seat backs which could be flipped to avoid having to turn the cars at the terminals, esp. in Saint John. My understanding is that the cars with these modifications lasted until VIA took over the operation of the Atlantic and I assume at some point this seating was replaced by VIA. ==>From many trips on the Atlantic Limited up to 1974, I recall the two cars usually assigned once they stopped turning the train in Saint John were 505 and 515. The walkover seats werent installed right away, so for a little while the dome seats faced backward in one direction. These cars also had 19 heavy but movable parlor car chairs in the former coach section. These seats were available for lounge service to both coach and sleeper passengers. There was no seat charge but if the train was crowded priority was given to passengers purchasing refreshments. This allowed more use of the small coffee shop section for food service. 2. On some Skyline cars used on the CP eastern trains, the coach seating was removed and replaced with some type of parlor car seating which I understand was loose seating and not fixed swivel seats found on many typical parlor cars. It is unclear to me whether the parlor seating in the Skylines was ever sold as revenue seating or if this was treated as non-revenue lounge seating. I recall some of these Skylines being used on the Atlantic in the early 1970s. ==>Car 510 was re-equipped with 19 movable parlor seats in the coach section in 1966 and used on Montreal-Ottawa trains 232-235 in place of a heavyweight parlor. In 1968 three more cars, including 505 and 515, were re-equipped with for paid parlor service replacing 40-seat cars converted from lightweight coaches, on the Montreal-Quebec City trains. These cars also replaced the full diners formerly carried on the Quebec City trains. 3. On some Skyline cars the coach seating was removed and dining room tables and chairs were installed. In post 68391, Don Thomas indicated that in the late 1960s the Canadian would sometimes have two Skylines in the summer and apparently one retained its coach seating and the other had dining room seating. ==> Streamliner Cars, Volume 2; The Budd Company by W. David Randall, RPC Publications, states that beginning in 1958, 26 lounge seats replaced the 26 coach seats on certain cars used on The Canadian during summer, and that by 1968 only cars 500-504, 506 and 507 were so used. I believe the seating is incorrect in that the cars were set up for dining service when I saw them, with 24 seats at six tables. (Having two additional chairs set up for dining in the space formerly devoted to a double coach seat would be impractical.) At full equipment utilization during the summer seven consists and thus seven Skylines were needed to protect this service. CPs Assignment of Space circulars confirm that there was no Skyline car assigned to Montreal-Vancouver coach service beginning with the summer of 1958. A notation shows unreserved dining service instead. Only the Toronto-Sudbury leg had a Skyline car assigned to coach service. It appears this Skyline full dining service continued through the winters of 1963-64 and 1964-65 since no Skyline car is shown in coach service west of Sudbury. From personal observation from the platform at Banff in 1974 the tables appeared to be full size, but when I rode The Canadian in the early years of VIA the cars had regular dining car chairs at smaller round bar tables. It is not clear what capacity these cars had to serve food given their extremely small kitchens, taking up barely more than half the space beneath the dome. With 24 people in the front section, 8 at booths and 9 (cozily) at the dinky little tables adjacent to the dome steps, and 6 beneath the dome, 47 people could sit down at one time. A full dining car level of service would have been problematic, and a reduced menu, or restriction of full dining service to part of the car, might have been necessary. The dining room beneath the dome included some storage space for materials normally found in a dining car pantry and under VIA operation I noted this room was set up as a pantry, so CP may have used it for the same purpose, increasing the capacity of the kitchen while cutting seating capacity to 41. Incidentally I found out that during the winter of 1960-61 (when the off-season Dominion was first reduced from a full-service train), The Canadian was assigned two Skylines in coach service, one Montreal-Vancouver and one Toronto-Vancouver. Presumably this was to increase the meal capacity now that longer-distance business was concentrated on this train.) The 1974 consists of the Canadian posted by Don Thomas in post 56358 shows at least one Skyline diner on the Canadian but the other consists appear to have Skyline coaches. Of the three modifications which I have mentioned above, which took place first and second? ==>It appears that the dining room was first, the parlor seats second, and the reversible dome seats in two parlor versions came third. Were any of the parlor seating or dining room modifications reversed back to coach seating or once made did the cars remain that way until they went to VIA? ==>It appears that cars 505 and 515 retained reversible dome seats and parlor chairs until VIA. I observed them in this service on the Atlantic Limited in the late 1970s. I dont know about the other two cars. I dont know what happened with the diner configuration cars; whether some or all returned to coach service before going back to dining seating. At the time VIA took over the operation of CP trains, how many Skylines remained with coach seating, how many had parlor seating and how many had dining room seating? ==>As with previous answer. Was there ever a time in the operation of the CP Canadian when the Skyline cars were regularly used as the sole meal service cars on the train? I recall in the late 1970s there was a time when the size of the CP Canadian shrunk considerably in the off season and I wonder if even the dining car was cut out then. I never saw CP operate The Canadian without a dining car, either in person or in a photograph. It may have had to operate without a diner due to a failure until the next spare car was available, but so far as I know this was not done on purpose. I found it interesting that a 1954 CP brochure titled "Scenic Domes - Another Canadian Pacific First in Canada" does not use the term "Skyline" car. They are called in the brochure "Deluxe Scenic Dome Coffee Shop Coaches." In a diagram of the car, the coffee shop section is labelled "Skyline coffee shop" but the "Skyline" name was evidently not then given to the car itself. The Park cars were called "Scenic Dome Lounge Sleepers." ==>The word Skyline was included on the cars number plates in 1955. It looks like the word may have been intended to be used only in relation to these cars and not the Park cars when the 1954 brochure was prepared. It is an interesting question whether the decision to describe the car itself as a Skyline had already been made, or occurred later. While it does not prove anything either way, CP already painted dining car and parlor car (& buffet parlor or café parlor) on heavyweight cars of those types, but curiously did not do so on the new Budd diners. Perhaps Deluxe Scenic Dome Coffee Shop Coach, while great for a descriptive brochure, was recognized as too much of a mouthful and a snappier name was needed. Just possibly (and this is quite speculative) there was a thought that the cars might be re-equipped some day so a generic (and attractive) word alluding to the dome and using the intended name for the coffee shop itself, would be better than a wordy description that would need to modified for each potential car configuration. The timetable listing for each train could describe the services provided or the actual function of the assigned Skyline car as necessary. It is quite possible that correspondence exists on this subject but I have no knowledge at this point. Thanks very much for any help with these questions. Lyman Holmes [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ For help, send an email to Canadian-Passenger-Rail-help@...o! 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