For several years CP had considered acquiring a dome for its Heritage Fleet, but the impetus to finally purchase the car came from Canadian Pacific President and CEO Keith Creel. Hrysak recalled after a trip in 2017 Creel asked what the train was missing, but before he or Tracy could say anything, Creel said “a dome car.” The search then began for an appropriate dome which resulted in the purchase of ex-SP No. 3605 from Colorado’s Royal Gorge Route Railroad.
One reason for selecting the car was SP’s domes were unique. Rather than having all seats immediately under the dome as most cars have, SP cars had two levels. At “ground” level there was a 20-seat lounge with the dome high overhead. Stairs then went from the lounge to the dome. “There isn’t another type of car that has that open ceiling to it,” Tracy says.
SP’s seven dome cars were designed by Frank H. Stengle Jr. and built by SP at its Sacramento Shops during 1954 and 1955. The railroad claimed that most dome cars were too tall to fit through its tunnels, so it designed and built its own domes out of older cars. They weren’t full-length domes – the dome only ran three-quarters of the length of the car. They were built for service on the San Joaquin Daylight, Shasta Daylight, and the San Francisco Overland, and were later used on the Coast Daylight and the City of San Francisco. Budd built the upper dome portions of the cars. At 15-feet, 2-inches tall, they had the shortest dome height of any dome car.
The Canadian Pacific car was fabricated from SP tavern car No. 10312, built by Pullman Standard in 1937, and was outshopped in May 1955 for Shasta Daylight service. It became Amtrak No. 9374 in 1972, and was retired in 1981. It then went through a succession of owners before being sold in 2000 to the Royal Gorge Route where it ended up in storage when the railroad purchased three other full-length domes.
When CP purchased the car was it was essentially a shell, with windows missing and no interior furnishings. According to Tracy, that actually was beneficial, since CP planned to tear the car down to a shell anyway before inspection and rebuilding could begin. “Any way you look at it, it was a ground up restoration,” Tracy says. Work on the car began in August 2018 and it entered service on June 13, 2019.
The railroad replaced sheet metal on the outside of the car, and inspected and repaired the side sills. The dome structure itself need very little work, Tracy said. Interior features that were added include captain’s chairs and recliners in the dome. Soft leather chairs with tables were added in the lounge section, but this can be changed depending on the type of meeting or event. A new bar was built and installed. The car originally did not have a bathroom so one was added. In a salute to its Southern Pacific heritage, the air slide doors (which are now electric) retain their round windows, SP Daylight style speaker grilles were installed, and it was numbered CP 3605.
“The car is now used more for comfort, so seating capacity was reduced, Hrysak said. “Where the car used to seat 60, it now has 11 seats in the lounge and 40 on the upper lounge level.” TV tray style tables that can be pulled out or folded up were placed by the captain’s chairs. An electrically-driven retractable flat screen television that folds into the ceiling above the bar area was built in. The car was named Selkirk after the mountain range in British Columbia traversed by CP.
Plans call for the car to be used on company specials, and eventually on charter trips of the Royal Canadian Pacific.
In addition to the CP car, four other ex-SP cars survive, but only one is in railroad service. No. 3603 is painted in Kansas City Southern’s “Southern Belle” colors and used on Panama Canal Railway passenger trains between Panama City and Colon.
Look for a feature story on the Selkirk in an upcoming issue of Trains magazine.
I rode in the SP dome many times on Amtrak 5 and 6 between Sacramento and Reno. I agree that the air conditioning system was never up to the task, but it was still a great car to ride in, much better than the Sightseer Lounge. For an interesting historic view, the special train that SP ran for Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to the U.S. featured at least one or maybe two of their dome cars and one can see newsreel footage of him enjoying his ride up the coast on various internet sites. He was quoted as noting the superior ride of U.S. passenger trains over Soviet ones.
They do have a lower level. Or at least did. As SP/AMTK cars, they had raised seating for about 3/4 their length with dome-type seats, but at one end they had a lounge at normal floor height and the dome at dome height.
On the CP car, the lower level lounge would be the end with the side windows.
That’s an awful lot of red on the side of the car. Maybe the beaver emblem would help.
Mr. Mortensen, I don’t believe they have a “lower level”.
So Amtrak could have had a dome on the Lake Shore Limited if they had used these. That would have been awesome especially in the fall foliage season.
I rode one of these in the Purple-and-Red carpet era of Amtrak on the Coast Starlight in 1978. Leaving Oakland after dark, the air conditioning system had a tough time clearing the air of the pot smoke. It was like Spicoli’s van from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High!” The lounge–lower level–was a great place to sit and enjoy the scenery high overhead. I wish CP’s all-maroon scheme would do the car justice, however–that’s a LOT of pain on the side unbroken by windows or fluting.
That’s wonderful news. Thank you, Trains!
Canadian Pacific and Norfolk Southern chose the best colours for their varnish – maroon and Tuscan red, respectively. These pigments are based on my favourite colour, red.
If Canadian Pacific were not duty-bound by a contract with Via Rail Canada, it could reinstate daily competing passenger train service between Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver that would be timely and much faster than Via’s Canadian. The route of the original Canadian would be retraced with service restored to Calgary and Regina with additional train service at Winnepeg. Granted, the railway is in business to make a profit and answers to its stockholders and shareholders. But, the passenger trains would raise its profile and corporate image. New and/or refurbished passenger cars would be needed to augment the existing fleet.
A good move. I can think of a couple of other things the CP Heritage Fleet is missing. Their numbers are 4-6-4.
I rode one of these cars on Amtrak 45 years ago, on the City of San Francisco While certainly a pleasant experience, it was considered mechanically obsolete back then. I’m quite surprised (pleasantly surprised) that it hasn’t disintegrated.
I have seen one of these former SP domes on the Panama Canal Railway. The lower section on one end of the car is a mini-bar. You go up stairs to the side of the bar to get to the upper level. I think the rest of the lower level was closed.
Penelope Vinson – The question of being legally unable to compete against VIA is interesting. A couple of years ago I got into a theoretical discussion with Fred Frailey, who told me that BNSF could reinstate the Super Chief tomorrow if it wished to, without any restraint from Amtrak. Just daydreaming, of course.
It took them 60 years but CP finally has a full length dome. There were plans in the late fifties to follow up the order for cars for the Canadian to buy more cars including full length domes for the Mountaineer and dome sleepers but other than RDC’s the Canadian cars were the last new passenger cars CP ordered.