wharfrat Wrote:
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> It has always been written that they were built that way because of concerns about operating under wire.

In 1990 Princess Tours tried a brief run on Amtrak's Coast Starlight between Los Angeles and Oakland as the California Sun Express with three of the ex-Milwaukee Road SuperDome cars owned by Tour Alaska that had been displaced when Princess introduced the Ultra Domes in Alaska service in 1988 (both Princess & Tour Alaska were owned by P&O Orient lines). Those cars were converted to 66 seats upstairs and 22 downstairs.

Since there was no access between these cars and the double-decked Superliner cars coupled ahead of them, an additional brakeman was necessary to staff the cars. As a relatively new-hire working the extra board in Los Angeles, there were several occasions where I was lucky enough to work from L.A. to Santa Barbara as the rear brakeman on these cars.

On most occasions the cars were lightly patronized as the concept never really caught on in a big way and the service did not last long. The light patronage often meant there was extra food prepared and we certainly didn't want it to go to waste. Here's a photo of me on one of the Pullman-Standard Princess Tours cars accompanied by one of the on-board service employees. It was a tough job but someone had to do it!


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