Dome car
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Cars such as Santa Fe's Pullman-built lightweight "Pleasure Dome"-Lounge car #506, ordered specifically for the Super Chief in the early 1950s, remained in service well into the Amtrak era. The car's signature Turquoise Room was promoted as "The only private dining room in the world on rails." The "handrail" radio antenna that runs along much of the car's roof is for the train's music system. |
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.
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.
The popular story is that the first dome cars in
North America were conceived by
Western Pacific's President
Harry Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was riding in the cab of one of his railroad's
diesel locomotives through the
Rockies when he thought that every passenger should be able to see the scenery that is passing by on his railroad's passenger trains. His idea was to provide a full 360-degree view from above the train in newly built "Vista-Dome" cars. The idea really wasn't too radical as railroad
cabooses were often built with a cupola above the car's roofline so the train crew could get a better view of the train, and the
Canadian Pacific Railway had used "tourist cars" with raised, glass-sided viewing cupolas on their trains through the Canadian
Rocky Mountains in the 1920s. Modern vista-dome cars were introduced on the
California Zephyr inauguration in
1949.
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A former Santa Fe "Big Dome"-lounge car originally built by the Budd Company in the mid-1950s for El Capitan; eventually, these cars found their way into consists on nearly every main line. Unit #506 was the only unit retained by the Santa Fe after 1971; all the rest were sold to Auto-Train. |
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. Starting in the 1980s, the use of the dome car has become rarer as
Amtrak has introduced new bi-level passenger cars that reach the maximum possible height over the length of the car. Dome cars are very popular on tourist railways and private charter rail services.
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Passenger car*
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