Articulated dining cars? They were popular in the 1930's; usually it meant two carbodies shared a center truck. Later they fell out of favor. The Burlington's Twin Zephyrs of 1936 (Day trains between Chicago and Minneapolis; later between Chicago and Omaha-Lincoln) were fully articulated. The problem with articulated cars or trains is, if one car needs repaired, the whole articulated set is out of service.

Luxfer Prisms had me confused. It turned out they are called "Prismatic Glass" in the USA and were used in many places.

US railroads did own hotels and restaurants. Often they contracted the operation to non-railroad firms. They generally did not own manufacturing firms.

Phil Mulligan

I found them as Luxfer prisms, so that's why I called them so. On Brezoianu Street no. 53 (right near Cişmigiu Park) in a complex of 2 apartament buldings. They do have an underground big garrage, common with the building from no. 51 (in a music clip you can see a car get out from no. 51). On the yard of no. 53 there is a "mushroom" with such prisms. I thought it was only a design, but it was round for a purpuse: underneath it it was a something that I only imagined could exist for cars: an turntable. Just as you could rotate a locomotive into a yard or depo, you could rotate a car. Went out of use very long time ago. That building was quite differit for other of it's time. And it might be in the same area another turntable for cars.

The "Zephyr" trains sets where mosty articulated. But I didn't see any pic of separate articulated dining cars. Why they did used articulated ones?
The image from 3:03 is classic for what U.S.A. used to be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqxpp9Jx3JI

"Luxfer" was a trade namd for a particular design. 'll provide citations if anyone is actually interested in the industrial history.

The articulated six-wheel car I mentioned was Southern Pacific. -over-six-

Plase put them. I arleady know about glassian.org
Can you plase put images with those dining cars.
This time I won't forget to put question: there where just a few trains like the Autotrain. But there where more trains in which you could tike a motorcycle? Maybe even a sidecar one.

Some information on Southern Pacific triple-articulated diners

http://espee.railfan.net/triple-articulated-units.html

The large Canadian railways built and owned a number of hotels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_rai ... _of_Canada

JR

They still had dreams. On real scale and scale model:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mpbVKqmIWI

Bad... they wanted second class back then... nowydays allmost every public transporation is 2nd class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41e3Nq6giGo

Intresting how they raised the phantographs @ 9:21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LANiEJPLmJ0

But does in Grand Central Terminal Diesel locomotives are allowed to enter?

Diesels were tolerated running in GCT,

New Haven's (later Penn Central, Conrail, Metro-North and Amtrak) FL9's were allowed to idle the diesels to use the air compressors for brake air. The FL9's were built with 600 volt air compressors but when these needed maintenance they didn't get it and NH and successors used the air compressors on the 16-567 main engine.

This is not to say some engineers didn't leave them completely in diesel mode while underground.

Phil Mulligan

Also - welcome back to this forum.

One reason given for the 567Ds in the FL9s being left running in the Penn Central years was batteries. If you shut off the prime mover there was no guarantee that you'd get it to restart, and there were many places in GCT that it would be inconvenient or even impractical to get them 'jumped'.

When I saw this being done, there was an effort to move the locomotive close to or under one of the street grates, so the "usual" acrid white smoke screen even from idling could be vented reasonably straight up and out. Departure was something of another matter...

So they where assisted by tunel electric locomotives or did the trains leaved with Diesel power?
What is the situation nowdays?

The problem was that Penn Central was still worse-than-church-mouse poor and couldn't afford the necessary maintenance on the old engines. New money was going to go into MU equipment, and there were competing lines that needed the government capital available.

I don't know if there was any organized effort to fix or maintain the third-rail shoes; the arrangement only had to be good for a maximum 20mph anyway all the way out to the viaduct entrance at about 91st Street, after which the locomotive was in the open air. My somewhat-educated guess was that they ran the locomotives up to higher notch while still under the grating to 'boil off' the worst of the unburnt crap that had accumulated in the manifolds, and gotten things hot enough that any defective or broken unit injectors or worn rings weren't giving the full quenched pale blue somke -- or at least had it minimized.

Acceleration was an amusing thing, and I, coming across it as a child mostly exposed to 244 noise, thought it was the 'normal starting sound' for 567-equipped locomotives (FL9s and E8s) in the 'fast passenger service' on the River Line (which only recently had been the Mighty New York Central's mightiest line!) From Harmon southbound, this involved opening the throttle for a few chugs (and vast smoke eruption) -- maybe 12 to 16 of them -- then closing while the Roots blower drive whines down and the train has accelerated to a couple of mph. Repeat this two or three times until the train has gotten to about 10-15mph, then start notching up raggedly. I have pictures of the end of the last car completely framed in great clouds of acrid white...

Neither steam engines nor diesels were routinely hauled into GCT by electrics. NYC trains changed engines to stright electrics at Harmon (now Croton-Harmon) and North White Plains. NH trains changed to electrics at New Haven, NH elecrtics could run on either 11000 V AC from overhead wire or 600 V DC from underrunning third rail. The switch from overhead to third rail was at Woodlawn, in the Bronx.

In the late 1950's NH acquired 60 EMD FL9 locomotives that could run on third rail with the diesels shut dowm. They also had electric air compressors as well as the air compressors mounted on the 16-567 diesel engines. The third rail shoes were supposed to fold up and down but often did not, so if the shoes failed the FL9's pulled the train under diesel power. The NH was financially broke and the bosses knew if the electric compressor didn't work, the ultra-reliable EMD compressor would make air as long as the diesel was idling. So the 567's idled in GCT even with the third rail shoes drawing electric power.

Phil Mulligan

For the sake of completeness there were some 'diesel' trains hauled into GCT by electrics. They were RDCs, specially modified to be coupled to the back of a MU consist.

If I remember correctly, there was an RDC modification equipped to run 'native' on third rail, with small motors on the idler axles. Some of the other 'wonder trains of the future' also had rudimentary, but often inflammatory DC capability -- again for 20mph operation on the small amount of NYC main subject to the Kaufman Act on the island of Manhattan.

Oops, yes. Some of the NH experimentals and the Roger Williams had third rail and motors for GCT. Also the Amtrak-era Turbos.

The NH spent a lot of money it didn't have on those experimentals.

Phil Mulligan

I got it now. So the switching was made outside the city, but some Diesel where allowed with idling motor into tunnel.
But there was any prohibition of using the toilets where trains where on the tunnels?
There where ever freight trains entrering the insland of Manhattan? I guess even today some apreciabile quantyt of goods comes into New York City by train - leaving it, well, it's a port and it's normal. Probably when N.Y.C. industry was more powreful, a lot of manufactured good left the city by the train. Speaking of manufactured goods, did some of the fast passager trains had express delevery cars or it was impossbile to attach such cars on Penn Station or Grand Central Terminal.