I am leading a seat restoration effort at the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum (psrm.org) for our UP576 passenger coach (originally 1931 pullman). From my initial investigation, it appears UP used the same fabric for a number of years across all passenger seats post WWII. I have a high quality sample from the UP576 “modernized” in 1948 to match streamlined coaches. See references in link below. Anyone know anything about fabric used my UP in this time frame? Did fabric have a nickname? Is there a back story? Thank you.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiIGHVAwHEVH0CgDM7s ... A?e=rNhz3C

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiIGHVAwHEVH0CrIkyc ... p?e=Tq1UES

Have you tried contacting the UP? They had many of those seats redone themselves and may have commissioned a run of the material.

I have contacted UP Heritiage Fleet as well as UP Historical Society and UP Museum. Nothing. They don't attempt historic fabrics. Norfolk Southern and Illinois Railroad Museum are the only folks I have found which attempt historic fabrics. Via a contact there, I have located a mill which can do a custom weave matching the 1948 original but the price will be greater than $200 per yard. A quality fabric which could be used for seat restoration is $50 per yard.

What UP has used for the past 30 years or so in their heritage fleet isn't based on anything historic - it is green fabric with small UP logos in it.

When NS sold off their excursion fleet circa 1995, they sold off whole rolls of the brown upholstery they used. Possibly some of them are still around. If I can track down what these rolls were made of I will let you know. I recall that the Golden Gate RR Museum purchased several of them.

For more remodeling ideas, track down some of the 4800-series cars that UP sold to GTW in the 1970s. At least a few of them still had the original flooring in them when I last saw them.

See the links in my opening posts. The color is burgundy, not brown. However, some folks see it as "brown". I will follow-up on your suggestions. Thank you.

"ctjack",
I see I responded to quickly to your post. By "NS", you mean "Norfolk Southern"? Right? Note in my post that the mill I am using to reproduce the UP original did some work recently for Norfolk Southern. NS brown would certainly not be UP burgundy. Again, see the links in my first post. The UP post card I have definitely shows the same fabric as the UP 576 I am working on. The original sample I have perfectly matches the post card. Clearly, UP used the "Burgundy Stripe" (my made up name) fabric for a number of years. It is a beautiful unique fabric but not sure PSRM can afford same. Thanks for your interest.

Definitely a wide wale corduroy of some kind... LOL

https://i.etsystatic.com/9572706/r/il/b ... 5_1285.jpg

NV Pete,
Thanks for the pointer to the "Wale Corduroy". Certainly, the style and color are close to the UP fabric of the late 40's / early 50's. Perhaps I should call it "Union Pacific Corduroy"?

NVPete,
Where did you get the image of the corduroy fabric you sent me?