Looking for info on a NYC twin unit diner that was sold to SCL sometime in the late 60’s possibly early 70’s. Evidently very few, if any, photo’s exist of these cars.

Any help is much appreciated

Is it discussed in this thread from last November?: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47738

I went through Wayner's and couldn't find a twin-unit diner that went from NYC or PC to ACL, SAL or SCL.

NYC hat 2 pairs of kitchen/dorm + dining room cars (esch pair was a kitchen/dorm car and a dining room car) built for NYC's 20th Century Limited.

I'm looking at a huge order for cars to P-S from C&O which was far more cars than C&O could use. C&O received 8 pairs of kitchen/dorm + dining room cars and immediately sold them all. 4 pairs went to NYC; 2 of of the NYC pairs went to B&O a few years later. 2 pairs went to IC and two pairs went to ACL.

C&O had bought three consists from Budd to form a daylight WAS-Cinti train that never went into service and was mostly sold off. ACL got 3 lunch counter-kitchen cars and 3 dining room cars and rebuilt them to 3 pairs of kitchen/dorm + dining room cars.

So ACL had 5 pairs of kitchen/dorm + dining room cars, all of which were ex-C&O. NYC had 2 ex-C&O pairs that were built to the same specs as 2 of the ACL pairs.

Phil Mulligan

Twin Unit Diner NYC 481 Kitchen/Lounge and NYC 408 Table Car are stored in Petersburg, WV. The two cars are now a part of the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad collection. The cars are not operational but are in line to be restored at some point.

The cars were originally sold to the Pickens Railroad in South Carolina and purchased by Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC in the early 1970's. The two cars along with NYC 2938 and SF Baggage Messenger Car 3420 were moved off rail to BJU and set up as various restaurants and finally as a used car dealership.

In late 2005, BJU sold the 4 cars to Steam Services of America and the cars were moved by truck to live rail in Gray Court, SC. The cars were made railroad worthy and shipped to Mauldin, SC in 2006 for long term storage on the Carolina Piedmont Railroad. The 3420 was sold to the Great Sandhills Railway in Canada and moved in March of 2021. The three NYC cars were move via CSX in February 2022 to the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad on the South Branch Valley RR.

Robert Franzen
Steam Services of America
Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad

There was indeed a NYC full diner-kitchen lounge twin set that was sold to the SCL. NYC #488 (diner) and #486 (kitchen-lounge), to PC #4590-#4591, to SCL #5980-#5981 in 1970, listed by Randall as scrapped in 1971. (Also worth noting that of the nine Budd-built twin sets that NYC had, this pair was the only one renumbered to PC. [Two of the eight P-S built sets were also re# to PC.])

"There was indeed a NYC full diner-kitchen lounge twin set that was sold to the SCL. NYC #488 (diner) and #486 (kitchen-lounge), to PC #4590-#4591, to SCL #5980-#5981 in 1970, listed by Randall as scrapped in 1971. (Also worth noting that of the nine Budd-built twin sets that NYC had, this pair was the only one renumbered to PC. [Two of the eight P-S built sets were also re# to PC."

I believe there is also little, if any evidence that this Budd ex-NYC twin-unit set was ever put into service by the SCL. It remains a mystery why it was acquired so late and scrapped within a year or so.

These cars are not listed in Wayner's PC or SCL pages.

SCL's 5 twin-unit diners were all kitchen/dorm + dining room pairs.

NYC 486 was a kitchen/lounge car and 488 a dining room car. These would not be suitable to protect the ACL cars which had dormitory space for the crew's overnight use. Perhaps the NYC cars were acquired as parts hulks.

PRR and NYC motive power departments coordinated their locomotive numbers before the merger while the passenger departments did not. This is illustrative of the chaos that was Penn Central.

Phil Mulligan

I’ve been told there are MAYBE 1-2 photos that exists of them in SCL, although none have been found (at least to my knowledge).

My best guess it was an 11th hour cloke and dagger type deal that was struck for some reason, I literally cannot think of a single reason why they needed a twin unit diner, especially on the eve of Amtrak coming into the picture and especially with SCL having 5 sets of twin’s already that weren’t being utilized as it was.