Dominic Mazoch postedThe HAWKEYE? That ran in the Mid-West. The closest SP at the time got there was near Dallas. What train did that IC train connect to? Or did IC lease the cars?
Also, there is nothing like the square of ice cream served in the diner!
And the IC got nowhere near the RF&P, either. The Hawkeye ran between Sioux City, Iowa, and Chicago. Beginning with Christmas Vacation, 1967, I became a regular passenger for visits home to the far western Chicago exurbs for major holidays and summer vacations. When I had enough money saved up, I would ride Pullman - a special treat. As indicated, the sleeping cars were a Pullman operation, not an IC one, therefore, Pullman could run whatever cars were available without respect to road colors or other niceties. Nobody but a few rail nuts cared, anyway. As we all know, the SP lead the fleet in discouraging passenger traffic - closely followed by the vile Penn Central - so there must have been lots of excess SP painted Pullman cars floating about. As for the RF&P and the Spotsylvania County, I haven't a clue. I suppose the car came off the Silver Meteor or one of its ilk during a downgrade.
Wikileaks reports that the Pullman Co. quit the sleeping car business on December 31, 1968, and was dissolved on January 1, 1969. It was at about the same time that Pullman quit that the sleeping cars disappeared from Nos. 11 and 12 and that left me with coach, along with all the crying babies the great state of Iowa could muster. There was still the mail, both storage and an RPO. I remember a Conductor or Trainman telling me that the RPO wasn't long for this world and he obliged me by obtaining a scrap of paper with the Hawkeye's cancellation - now long lost in one of the umpteen moves since those halcyon days but I remember it.
The Hawkeye was a homely little train but it was generally on time. One night I clocked it at 120 MPH - it was 64 miles in 32 minutes or some such. The usual power was two GP9s and they couldn't have made that run, however, various E units found their way into that assignment and I must believe that the Engine Crew had some real fun that night. As for me, I didn't enjoy that same sensation of floating above the rails, again, until AMTK started doing 125 on The Corridor.
The Lionel SP Pullman ("sleeper") is quite remarkable and I'm sure that all of the other cars in the series are just as terrific - don't let 'em disappear without grabbing a set for yourself. I just couldn't get over mine. The quality, fit and finish are exceptional for any model at any price. Plastic may look nice for some smooth sided cars but aluminum, and particularly this set, is the cat's me-ow.
Note: I refer to sleeping cars as "Pullmans", just one of my many anachronisms. When I see or hear the word "sleeper" all I can think of is the old Woody Allen movie of the same name. I've never been an Allen fan but there was one routine in that movie that every child should be forced to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV2N4KSh3x4
