Technical Details

There were only two (2) other lots of Budd built cars in operation with this “jack of all trades” 5-1-4-4 room arrangement.  One group, built by Pullman-Standard for ACL, FEC, C&EI, L&N and NC&StL had been placed in service on the New Dixieland in December of 1954.  The second group, the inspiration for the Seaboard cars, was a colossal order of 42 sleepers purchased from Budd in late 1954 and early 1955 by Canadian Pacific.  These cars were ordered to re-equip CP’s Dominion and create the legendary Canadian, Canada’s version of the California Zephyr.  These 5-1-4-4s, in the Manor Series, shared many of the same features with the Seaboard cars but had smooth letterboards above the windows and were equipped with outside swing hanger trucks.

The Seaboard cars were constructed entirely of stainless steel, a Budd trade-mark.  Standard width diaphragms had sensibly replaced the full width diaphragms by the time these cars were built, but they included full skirting between the trucks.  This was later removed for better access to the complicated plumbing and wiring so common to sleepers.

The cars’ trucks were type 41-DN with an 8’-6” wheel base.  This type of truck could be found under other series of cars ordered by Seaboard from Pullman-Standard about this time, including the 11DBRM cars, the 5-2-2 series and the 5DBRM “Sun” lounges.  This type of truck had inside swing hangers and disc brakes and presented an unusual profile by showing no brake cylinders or brake shoes externally.  Also featured was a Westinghouse Air Brake AP-3 wheel slide control device.  The brakes themselves were schedule D-22 electro-pneumatic with straight air control.  This system included a D-22BR control valve and a B-3 relay valve.

Leased by Amtrak in the beginning, the Seaboard Henderson operated first on the New York-Florida Champion and then the overnight single-summer-of-1972-only Washington-Savannah Carolina Coast.  It was still being leased in July of 1972, but Amtrak bought it sometime between July and October.

Given an intermediate shopping at Hamburg Industries at North Augusta, South Carolina, the car was numbered 2105 when completed in February of 1973, just in time to be assigned to Amtrak’s New York-Montreal Montrealer, an assignment from which it rarely strayed.

The sections were used by Amtrak as a crew dormitory.  Compartments had been designated as double bedrooms for sales purposes by Amtrak in June 1973, and the car appeared on equipment registers as a dormitory-6 double bedroom-4 roomette sleeper.  The car was shopped one more time during its Amtrak lifetime, a heavy shopping completed at Beech Grove in June, 1975.