| D&RGW 1145, named SILVER SKY at Aurora, Illinois on November 1, 1965, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. This car, built in 1948, is bringing up the rear of Train #18, the eastbound California Zephyr, pausing for a station stop at Aurora. The following is from internet search which took me to trainweb.org: D&RGW 1145 - "Silver Sky", sleeper-observation, remodeled 1974 - bedrooms removed, Equus Farms/Ansco Investments (11/87) (800711), VIA 15519 "Jasper Park" (not applied) (12/87) in a deal that brought ex CN/VIA "Tempo" coaches for Ski Train use - stored "inactive" in Montreal (2000) - sold late 2003/early 2004 to Bill Harman. Moved to storage in Saginaw Michigan for eventual charter use. Unfortunately, this car has suffered a tragic fate that has befallen two (so far) of it's sisters. When VIA acquired the car, they completely stripped it inside and out for a complete rebuild and conversion back to a dome sleeper obs (Rio Grande had removed bedrooms B,C, and D for conversion to additional lounge space and Room A became a large restroom). The skirts were removed and VIA started adding walls where the bedrooms were going to be. The idea was to make it match the "Park" cars as close as possible. Well, as usual, the political winds shifted and VIA experienced budget cuts. Since they were going to be running less trains, they didn't need as many dome obs cars, so the car was shoved outside so it could fill up with snow. (The windows were a long way from being reinstalled). So it sits today, a semi-gutted shell, in Montreal, along with other completely gutted ex-US domes like Silver Patio. (narrative courtesy Jon Clark). |