Superliner I

The Superliner I cars trace their origins to Amtrak's search for new long-distance equipment in the early 1970s. When the national passenger railroad issued a request for proposals in 1973, planners widely assumed the winning design would be bilevel, in large part because of the success Amtrak had inherited in the form of 73 Hi-Level cars originally built by the Budd Company for the Santa Fe Railway between 1954 and 1964. Those cars had proven well suited to western long-distance travel, and the new design was consciously shaped by their example. The design work was carried out by Louis T. Klauder and Associates, finalized by mid-1974, and Pullman-Standard ultimately won the construction contract over competing bids from Boeing, Budd, and Rohr. Amtrak placed an initial order with Pullman-Standard on April 2, 1975, covering 235 cars at a cost of approximately $143.6 million. The order was subsequently expanded to 284 cars, with the total expenditure rising to around $250 million. Deliveries ran from 1979 through 1981, well behind the originally scheduled completion date of mid-1978. The first coaches entered regular revenue service on February 26, 1979, operating between Chicago and Milwaukee. The Empire Builder, running between Chicago and Seattle, became the first long-distance train to receive a permanent Superliner assignment on October 28, 1979. Through 1980 and 1981, Amtrak progressively re-equipped its western long-distance trains, including the San Francisco Zephyr, the Southwest Limited, the Coast Starlight, and the Sunset Limited. The final car delivered, a sleeper completed in July 1981, was also the last passenger car ever constructed by Pullman-Standard, and was named in honor of company founder George Mortimer Pullman. The Superliner I fleet proved highly significant for Amtrak's long-distance operations. Amtrak estimated that converting a train to Superliner equipment increased ridership by roughly 25 percent. The cars' electrical head-end power systems made them far more reliable in the harsh winter conditions of the northern plains than the older steam-heated equipment they replaced, a quality that proved particularly valuable on the Empire Builder. A second generation of cars, the Superliner II, was later built by Bombardier Transportation between 1991 and 1996, adding 195 additional cars to the fleet and allowing Amtrak to finally retire the aging Hi-Level cars that had originally inspired the Superliner design.

The Superliner I cars are bilevel vehicles constructed by Pullman-Standard, with the passenger accommodations arranged primarily on the upper level and boarding facilities located on the lower level. Passengers access the upper level by way of a central stairwell. Coach cars in the fleet were built to seat between 62 and 78 passengers depending on configuration. The car types produced in the order included coaches, sleeping cars, dining cars, and lounge cars, the last of which featured distinctive floor-to-ceiling windows on the upper level and were designated Sightseer Lounges. The overall design drew heavily from the earlier Budd Hi-Level cars but was developed as a fully modern successor, incorporating head-end power in place of the steam heating systems common to the older fleet. The cars were engineered to the height clearance constraints typical of western American railroads, which permitted the full bilevel profile, though this same height ultimately limited their use on the Northeast Corridor and certain eastern routes where tunnel clearances are more restrictive. The large upper-level windows and elevated seating position were central to the passenger experience the design intended to provide, offering expansive views across the open landscapes of the western United States. The Superliner I cars were among the heaviest and most structurally robust passenger cars Amtrak operated, built for the demands of long-distance service over thousands of route miles on a regular basis.

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Models by: Broadway Limited · Kato · Walthers