Dome car
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dome car is a type of railway passenger car that can include features of a lounge car, dining car and an observation. Its primary feature is a glass dome on the top of the car where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train. Seats in the observation car dome often command a premium fare.
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[edit] Configuration
A portion of the car, usually in the center of the car, is split between two levels, with stairs leading both up and down from the train's regular passenger car floor level. The lower level of the dome usually consisted of a small lounge area, while the upper portion was usually coach or lounge seating within a "bubble" of glass on the car's roof. Passengers in the upper portion of the dome were able to see in all directions from a vantage point above the train's roofline.
On some dome cars, the lower portion was outfitted with a galley, where car attendants used dumbwaiters to transfer items between the galley and a dining area in the dome portion of the car.
[edit] History
Although the design of a dome car can be likened to a cupola caboose, the dome car's development is not directly related. The earliest documented predecessor of the dome car was first developed in the 1880s; known at the time as the "birdcage car", it was used on an 1882 sightseeing tour on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. In 1891, T. J. McBride received a patent for a car design called an "observation-sleeper"; illustrations of the design in Scientific American at the time showed a car with three observation domes.[1] Canadian Pacific Railway used "tourist cars" with raised, glass-sided viewing cupolas on their trains through the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the 1920s.
These dome car designs did not prove successful, and further refinements to the idea didn't come for a few decades. The first successful dome cars were conceived by Cyrus Osborn of General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). In 1944, while traveling in an EMD-built Rio Grande locomotive through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, it was Mr. Osborn that recognized the wonderful views the passengers could enjoy from a panoramic dome. His idea was to provide a full 360-degree view from above the train in newly built "Vista-Dome" cars.[1]
Mr. Osborn took the idea to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q). The CB&Q took a stainless steel Budd-built coach and rebuilt it at their shops in Aurora, Illinois, with the Vista Dome imagined and sketched by Cyrus Osborn. The dome area featured seats that were positioned lengthwise in the cabin facing double-pane windows which were designed to improve insulation. This first Vista Dome was called appropriately, Silver Dome. On July 23, 1945, the car was tested in the consist of the Twin Cities Zephyr.[1] Vista Domes quickly found their way into many Burlington Zephyr consists, culminating in 1949 with the inauguration of the California Zephyr.
Soon after Silver Dome entered service, railroad managers and passenger train executives met to discuss the merits of the dome car design. It soon became apparent that domes could only be used on railroads traversing the western half of North America due to the high clearances needed. The managers also noted that the passenger carrying space was regarded as non-revenue space because the managers believed that passengers would not want to spend their entire trip in the domes. These factors and the added costs of car construction in adding stairs, two levels of car floors and air conditioning increased the costs to railroads that chose to operate dome cars.[2]
Despite the costs involved, Pullman completed the first four production dome cars for GM's Train of Tomorrow in 1947. The four cars were closely modeled after Silver Dome and were displayed to the press on numerous private charters and to the public at the Chicago Railroad Fairs in 1948 and 1949 before they were sold to Union Pacific Railroad for use between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.[2] Other passenger car manufacturers soon built their own dome car models to compete with Pullman; Budd's first domes, completed in Fall 1947, were the first to feature curved glass and full streamlining effects on the domes and entered service on the Burlington's Twin Zephyrs between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.[2] Pere Marquette Railroad was the first to operate dome cars east of Chicago in 1948, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first railroad to operate dome cars on the east coast when it added domes to the Baltimore-Chicago Columbian.[3] B&O also went so far as to add floodlights on the roofs of its dome cars to illuminate the scenery during nighttime travel.[4]
On September 21, 1950, a monument was established at Glenwood Canyon. Called "Monument to an Idea", this monument celebrates the Vista Dome at the place where it was first inspired. In the late 1980s, the monument was moved to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado, to make way for expansion of Interstate 70.
As dome cars became more common on North American passenger trains, some western railroads purchased or built "superdomes." These were dome cars where the upper level of the car extended for nearly the entire length of the car. The cars' dimensions were all larger than standard dome cars of the time, all except the overall height; a superdome's height was only 15 ft 6 in (4.72 m), rather than the 16 ft 2 in (4.92 m) of standard domes. The first ten of these cars were built by Pullman for the Milwaukee Road's Chicago-Seattle Olympian Hiawatha. The Milwaukee Road paid $320,000 each for these cars and operated them on that route until 1961, after which four cars remained in service between Chicago and the Twin Cities; these last four were sold to Amtrak upon its formation in 1971. The Santa Fe and Great Northern also purchased superdomes from Budd in 1954 and 1955. All but one of Santa Fe's cars were sold to Auto-Train in 1971.[5]
Starting in the 1980s, the use of the dome car has become rarer as Amtrak has introduced new Superliner bi-level passenger cars that reach the maximum possible height over the length of the car; however, the Superliner lounge car can be considered as a dome car. Dome cars are very popular on tourist railways and private charter rail services.
[edit] Downfall and preservation
As railroad passenger ridership declined in the 1950s, dome cars were one of the first car configuration styles to be sidelined. Because of their enormous usage of sealed glass, the cooling of the cars required massive air conditioning capacity. Both maintenance and repair to these cars ran high. Breakdown of the air conditioning system on the road, even in winter, could render a car unusable.
Some railroad museums have preserved several dome cars. These cars are very popular with visitors who often remember the spectacular rides they had in these cars.
The Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California, rosters several Budd-built Vista-Dome cars from the original California Zephyr train. These are being restored as part of the museum's Zephyr Project, a program to recreate the CZ experience.
[edit] 21st century domes
A resurgence of dome car popularity has been precipitated by manufacturing companies such as Colorado Railcar. Featuring an updated version of original dome design, these "new" domes differ widely from those on Amtrak.
Models include the double deck Ultra Dome® railcar, the single-level dome railcar, single and bilevel sleeping cars, entertainment cars, dining cars and custom cars. These cars are in use by American Orient Express, Holland America, Princess Tours, Alaska Railroad, Royal Caribbean and Rocky Mountaineer Railtours.
Dome rail travel was highlighted in the PBS-aired program Dome Car Magic. Produced by award-winning Richard Luckin, it is narrated by Michael Gross and chronicles the history of the railroad sightseeing cars, from Burlington's 1945 "Silver Dome" to the full length models operating today in Alaska and Canada.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- White, John H., Jr. (1978). The American Railroad Passenger Car. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-2743-4 (pbk.: set); ISBN 0-8018-2722-1 (pbk.: v.1); ISBN 0-8018-2747-7 (pbk.: v.2); ISBN 0-8018-1965-2 (hc.).
[edit] External links
| Rail transport passenger equipment | |
|---|---|
| Head-end equipment | Baggage · Express reefer · Horse car · RPO · TPO |
| Passenger-carrying equipment | Coach · Couchette · Diner · Dome · Lounge · Observation · Sleeper / Pullman |
| Miscellaneous equipment | Combine · Troop kitchen / Troop sleeper |
