A question about the Mt. Hood, which I was fortunate to ride on SP&S 2 from Portland to Spokane in 1969. The first post on this thread stated that the Mt. Hood was built to Northern Pacific plans. Is this true? I don't believe that NP had any cars of this sort. (Did anyone have any sleeper lounges that the space included both roomettes and bedrooms? I think that every other Pullman sleeper-lounge was just bedrooms and lounge space.) And wasn't the original use of this car on the Portland section of the GN Empire Builder, and painted in the EB paint scheme? I can see the car being built to GN plans, but question the claim for NP plans.

Another story regarding the two cars, a story I'd been told but never confirmed with any photos, is where some guys/fans in Portland would charter the Mt. St. Helens, since it was the backup car to the Mt. Hood and not in regular service, put it on the end of No. 4 to Wishram, and make a round trip to Bend on the mixed. Since the scheules of the mixed were different over the weekend, a Portland-Wishram-Bend round trip was possible, leaving Portland late in the evening on Friday, arriving in Wishram about midnight, leaving at 1am, arriving in Bend at 8am, them leaving that evening at 8pm and making the trip back up to Wishram connecting with No. 3 (or No. 1 if the mixed was a little late) getting to Portland by Sunday morning. What we'd all give to do that today, right? What's more, they did it more than once.

Well, I heard that one time they were on the mixed towards Bend, but were held at South Junction for hours. Turns out there was a derailment on the OT, and they were stuck there. After several hours a small bus pulled in to "rescue" them. Instead, the commandeered the bus to go into Madras to stock up on food and beer, went back to the car and waited out the clean up. Can anyone confirm that this story is true?

Lee Hower
Sacramento