Great Northern Empire Builder, 1947-1951

Fred Klein, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2016

This is the first incarnation of the streamlined Empire Builder, part of the great postwar rush to get brightly colored passenger trains to keep travelers on the rails. The Empire Builder paint scheme is one of the most admired railroad color schemes, and my personal favorite.  This train is a good one to model because most of the cars are available with nearly accurate off-the-shelf models.  Thanks to M&R models, etched Alpaca metal sides for the remainder of the cars in this train are currently available.  Con-cor chose Great Northern as the approximate prototype for its smooth-side cars, which makes it much easier to assemble the train.  Con-cor put skirts on all of its cars, but most of the GN cars did not have skirts.  Con-cor used un-prototypical Pullman green plastic for its GN passenger car trucks, which I repainted.  Also, Con-cor mirror reversed the sleeper and diner cars, apparently because of a production slip up.  See the page on smooth side passenger cars for more detailed prototype comparisons.

 

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy handled the train from Chicago to St. Paul, generally pulled by two silver E7 units.  GN took the train on to Seattle, and the Portland cars were split off in Spokane for transport by the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railroad.  Cars were owned proportionally by these three railroads.  This consist represents the train between St. Paul and Spokane, and with minor adjustments, between Chicago and St. Paul.  It was very important to GN to keep a train with the Empire Builder colors, and cars of other colors are unusual.  The exception is that the CB&Q sometimes used its own silver baggage and RPO cars in the Chicago to St. Paul run, but I have not seen photos of this.  Except for baggage and RPO cars, cars assigned to the EB were lettered “Empire Builder”.  Other GN trains carried “Great Northern”, but of course substitutions were made for equipment failures.  The best reference I have found for the Empire Builder is Great Northern Pictorial volume 3 by John F. Strauss.  The best article on the 1947 EB is on page 108 of the 12/1991 issue of Model Railroader, and is complete with foldout drawings.

 

1947 Empire Builder at the southern border of Glacier National Park, Montana, cover of John Strauss’s Great Northern Pictorial volume 3, Four Ways West, 1993.

 

 

A pair of colorized postcard views of the 1947 Empire Builder, seen as one of the great streamliners of the time.

 

The 1947 cars were numbered in the 1100 series.  The train was essentially replaced in 1951 with cars numbered in the 1200 series.  The former cars were mostly moved to other trains such as the Western Star and re-lettered “Great Northern”.  Dome cars were added in 1955 and numbered in the 1300 series.  The 1955 cars were mostly inherited from the 1951 train, but some were rebuilt 1947 cars which either kept their 1100 numbers with new names, or got new 1300 series numbers. 

 

Don’t get confused by GN’s car names, which are taken from features along the route.  The lunch counter diners are called “… Lake”, but full diners are “Lake …”.  1947 sleepers are “Glacier” and “Pass”.  In 1951 the “Glacier” series was dropped and the “Pass” series replaced by very similar “River” cars.  The 1947 “River” observations therefore had to be replaced by 1951 “Mountain” observations.  A new 6/5/2 sleeper in the “Pass” series was introduced in 1951 bearing no similarity to the former “Pass” cars.  The former 1947 “River” observations returned in 1955 as “Coulee” cars minus the buffet but with 2 extra rooms and 6 roomettes.  Got it?  Just remember that the “River” name runs through it, the “Pass” name gets passed on, but “Glaciers” melt and “Mountains” erode.

 

The cars are from a variety of places: Con-cor and Kato are factory painted, M&R models sides are custom painted, and Life-like locomotives are factory painted.  That is the fun of building a train.  Each maker has a slightly different paint shade and saturation.  My scanner reveals the differences in the Omaha orange (daylight orange) colors, but the cars look more similar when actually running end-to-end under incandescent light.  Here is a table of the prototype train consist, and how I modeled it:

 

 

Head end portion (St. Paul to Spokane)

 

Two E7 units from GM’s Electomotive Division powered the train, modeled here by Life Like E7s.  I removed the incorrect orange factory-painted “Great Northern” on the E7s and applied yellow Microscale decals.  The E7s had difficulty with the mountain grades, and were replaced by F units in 1950-51.  The diesels are followed by the baggage-RPO (numbered 1100-04, built by Pullman Standard in 1947) with a 30’ RPO compartment.  Passenger baggage would be in the rear section of this car.  I have not seen photos of separate baggage/storage mail cars in the 1947 EB.  Apparently, the mail contracts that later required a full length RPO and additional storage mail cars had not begun in 1947.  The prototypical baggage-RPO model is from Con-cor.  These cars are all GN prototypes (see the Con-cor smooth side prototype web page). 

 

The first coach is a 60-seat short-haul coach for passengers riding short distances and not needing the leg room of the long-haul passengers.  The cars in series 1110-1114 were built by PS in 1947.  The windows were long so that two rows of seats could be by a window.  The Con-cor coach model is prototypical for this short haul coach.

 

Power units (Chicago to St. Paul)

 

The EB route over the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy rails was generally pulled by their own equipment.  This was generally a pair of E7s, shown here with Life-like models.  I replaced the black factory installed trucks with silver ones.

 

Coach and diner portion

 

Next are the three 48-seat coaches for long haul passengers.  The cars were built by PS in 1947 and were numbered 1120-1134.  One of these coaches was switched into the Portland section of the EB at Spokane.  The Kato coach models are similar to the GN prototype, but have one less coach window (only 11) because the model is a 44-seat coach.  The models have small lavatory windows that the GN prototype did not have.  The Kato models are close enough for me.  Kato lettered the middle coach for the Spokane, Portland and Seattle RR #350.  It was actually built in 1950 for the 1951 EB, but only purists would criticize me for including it in a 1947 train.  The three coaches ran the vestibules in the forward-back-forward position.  The reason is that men’s and ladies rooms were then adjacent to each other in the next car: in case one was occupied you did not have to walk an entire car length in search of another.

 

The next car is the lunch counter lounge dormitory.  Five of these were built by PS in 1947, numbered 1140-1144, and named “… Lake”.  Now a brass side is available from M&R models.

 

The 36-seat diner is another PS car of 1947, numbered 1150-1154 and named “Lake …”.  Unlike the lunch counter cars, “Lake” is the first part of the name.  The almost prototypical model is by Con-cor, which I re-lettered for “Lake Chelan” #1152.  Like the sleeper, the diner is a mirror-reversed model made by Con-cor.  I wonder if the Con-cor diners get left-handed faucets and bottles that open to the right?

 

Sleeper portion

 

 

The first of four sleepers is a 8/4/4 (8 duplex roomettes, 4 sections, 4 bedrooms) car built by PS in 1947 for the 1947 edition of the EB.  They were numbered 1160-1169 and named “Pass”.  The Con-cor model is an exact mirror image of the prototype car.  I re-lettered this car as “Logan Pass” #1164. 

 

The next two cars are “Glacier” 16/4 sleepers (16 duplex roomette, 4 bedrooms), so called “double duplex”.  They are 1947 PS cars in the 1170-1179 series.  The cars have sides from M&R models on Con cor car bodies, custom painted by Ernie Giese.  A second “Pass” car follows in the consist, here a Con-cor sleeper re-lettered as “Piegan Pass” #1163.

 

The last car is a 2-bedroom, 1-drawing room, buffet lounge observation, built by (you guessed it) PS in 1947.  The “River” observations were numbered 1190-1194.  The model is by Kato, custom painted by Model Railroad Customizing (Ernie Giese) as “Flathead River” #1192.  Ernie mis-lettered the car for post-1951 service with “Great Northern” instead of “Empire Builder”.  The model is very similar to the prototype in appearance, but the window placement is not exact.

 

 

REFERENCES

Anderson, Willard, “It takes money to make money” in Trains of the 1950s, Classic Trains special edition no. 12, 2013.

Randall, David, From Zephyr to Amtrak, Prototype Publications, 1972.

Sperandeo, Andy, The 1947 Empire Builder, Model Railroader, December 1991.

Strauss, John, Great Northern Pictorial volume 3, Four Ways West, 1993.

Yenne, Bill, Great Northern Empire Builder, MBI Publishing, 2005.

 

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