Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, Century locomotive, August 1999

Fred Klein, 2013, 2016

During 1999 and 2000 a special Amtrak train called “Celebrate the Century Express” ran in connection with the post office’s issuance of 10 sheets of commemorative stamps picturing achievements and people from America in the 20^th century, one stamp sheet for each decade. The train toured the whole country, had postal exhibits in display cars, and sold stamps and cancellations. The special train visited the Coast Starlight route in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles on weekends during August 1999. When the specially-painted Amtrak locomotive was on the west coast (and perhaps elsewhere) it was sometimes assigned to lead the Coast Starlight when not needed for weekend exhibits or for hauling its exhibit train. If you have this specially-painted Kato-Kobo locomotive and want to run it on a prototypical Amtrak train, find a city that it visited and use it on a mid-week train during 1999-2000.

 

Amtrak’s best-run train is the Coast Starlight, which connects Los Angeles to Seattle via Oakland and Portland. Runtime is about 35 hours with the daylight part along California’s scenic Pacific coast, and the nighttime part in Northern California and southern Oregon. The route includes the coast route that was followed by Southern Pacific’s Coast Daylight trains (Los Angeles to San Jose) and the Shasta Daylight and the Cascade trains between Oakland and Portland.

 

The consist is from a publication called Amtrak consists for a Coast Starlight on November 4, 1999.

 

All of the cars in the Coast Starlight are factory painted Kato cars except the Pacific Parlor car which I decorated with Microscale decals. Every car in this train is in phase IV paint. I use a Concor sleeper because I do not have enough Kato cars.

 

 

 

 

“Celebrate the century express” P42 locomotive

 

This is the “celebrate the century express” postal exhibit train as it toured the country. It had postal exhibits and visited major US cities on weekends in 1999 and 2000. Every car body type is available in N scale. Kato-Kobo released the P42 locomotive in this special paint scheme, but Kato did not make the other yellow exhibit cars even though the bodies are in the Kato lineup.

 

The Coast Starlight led by the “celebrate the century express” locomotive in San Luis Obispo on Wednesday, August 25, 1999. The specially painted Amtrak locomotive sometimes led the Coast Starlight when it was not needed for the weekend exhibits in cities or for hauling the exhibit train around the county. Photo from Amtrak by the numbers page 52, taken by David Oroszi.

 

 

The northbound Coast Starlight in California’s horseshoe curve ascending the Cuesta grade. The city of San Luis Obispo is in the distance to the right. All cars are superliners and there is no Pacific Parlor car in this short train. Unlike the model train, this Coast Starlight is in the later phase VIb paint.

 

 

 

Power and baggage car

 

I included a P42 locomotive painted in the special “celebrate the century express” yellow scheme that can be used for some weekday Coast Starlight trains running in August, 1999. This was a special limited release model from Kato-Kobo. Two GE P42 diesels in phase V paint power the train. The power is followed by a 72’ Budd baggage car. All are Kato models.

 

Sleeper section

 

The first sleeper is a dormitory car for the crew, which also transitions between high level and low level cars. In the model train I use a transition sleeper custom modified and decorated on a Kato sleeper by Thomas Magazin to make a prototype transition dormitory sleeper car. A typical Coast Starlight then has 3 superliner sleepers for the first class passengers. Sleepers 1 and 3 are Kato models and sleeper 2 is a Concor model.

 

Lounge and dining section

 

Adjacent to the sleeper section is the Pacific Parlour car for the use of the first class passengers. It is a rebuilt Budd lounge car originally used on the Santa Fe’s El Capitan train. The kitchen/pantry end of the car without windows is adjacent to the following dining car with its kitchen. The car is a Kato model using the El Capitan lounge car body that I decorated with Microscale decals. Next are the diner and lounge cars as found on all long-distance superliner Amtrak trains. The lounge is for all coach and sleeper passengers. Four coach cars follow the lounge. All are Kato models.

 

 

Coach section

 

Coach cars bring up the end of the train. The third coach has a baggage door, but is labeled as a coach smoking car. These are Kato models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Starlight

Amtrak, Brian Solomon, MBI railroad color history, 2004.

Amtrak by the numbers, by David Warner and Elbert Simon, White River productions, 2011. An excellent guide with thorough car histories and hundreds of photographs.

 

 

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