A busy day of Railfanning

[battalion51]

Yesterday I travelled up to SFD on Train 98 to meet a friend of mine who was there on vacation. When I arrived we walked around the Sanford shops and got a close up view of two of the three Auto Train wrecks that are being scrapped. They are Superliner II Sleeper 32100 "New York" and Superliner II Coach 34126. Both of the cars were gutted of anything and everything they could have, A/C units, seats, lightbulbs, you name it. The other car I couldn't get a number off of, but two workers were in the process of scrapping it. We also saw a couple of the engines in the engine shop, hard to tell what work was being done to them though. We then walked over to the Auto Train facility where they were preparing the train for departure, and starting to board passengers. A few things that we noticed were that the lead P-40, 842, had a really nasty scratch all down the fireman's side, it was also evident that part had been patched, as the paint was a slightly different tone. We were then allowed in the train by one of the attendants who let us look around the Auto Train Lounge, and man is that thing different than the Sightseers. All in all it was a good day, and hopefully I'll have some pictures developed soon.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Sounds like you had a really neat day, Battallion. How are some of the ways the Auto Train lounge differs from the Superliner lounges?

 

[Amfleet]

The Auto Train Lounges are truly unique and are very nice. They were converted from five surplus Superliner I Dining Cars. Upstairs there are 8 booths to one end of the car, a snack bar in the center, and circular seating at the other end. Downstairs there is more circular and a smoking room (far nice than a Coach Smoking). Here are a few links with lots of Aut Train photos.

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4