Appekunny Mountain was one of six deep-windowed observation-lounge cars built by ACF for Great Northern’s “Mid-Century Empire Builder.” Wallace W. Abbey photo
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It is worth recalling that the Great Northern Railway numbered these six passenger cars from 1290 to 1295 and named them after mountains along the Empire Builder’s route; ‘Appekunny Mountain’, ‘St. Nicholas Mountain’, ‘Going-to-the-Sun Mountain’, ‘Cathedral Mountain’, ‘Trempaleau Mountain’ and ‘Little Chief Mountain’. Placed in service in 1951 they served on the Empire Builder until 1955 when the ‘Great Domes’ were introduced and the dome-lounge took over the lounge function of the observation cars. The Mountain series observation cars were replaced by ‘Coulee’ series observation cars rebuilt from the original Empire Builder ‘River’ series observation cars. The ‘Mountain’ series cars were transferred to the ‘Western Star’, which ran as a companion train to the Empire Builder. Toward the end of the Great Northern era the ‘Mountain’ series observation cars were taken off the ‘Western Star’ and were assigned to the ‘International’ where they remained until Amtrak took over national passenger service in 1971. Amtrak then decided that it had no use for these cars and chose not to purchase them. They were all withdrawn from service and sold.
This magnificent 3 roomette-observation-lounge car (GN 1290) was built in 1951 and is currently owned by the Albany and Eastern Railroad.