TrainPages: Amtrak Amfleet I Roster

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Amtrak Amfleet I Roster

I originally posted this information on my old website on March 26, 2009. I have since updated it.

Amtrak's first new passenger cars were the Amfleet I series of coaches and food service cars built by the Budd Corporation and delivered from 1975 to 1977. Originally the coaches were called Amcoaches and the food service cars were called Amcafes, Amdinettes and Amclubs. Those names were eventually dropped. Most of these cars are still in service today, though they have been renumbered and rebuilt many times, making an accurate all-time roster difficult to determine. (There was also a later group of Amfleet II coaches and lounge cars, but I am not including them here.)

According to a 1977 Amtrak Amfleet Announcement, there were originally 492 Amfleet I cars: 406 Amcoaches and 86 Amcafes. The 1977 announcement didn't give the actual numbers of the cars. According to the Amtrak Car and Locomotive Spotter, Revised Fourth Edition, the original Amfleet I roster was as follows:

Numbers	Qty	Configuration
20000-20053	54	Amcafé (55 Coach Seats+Mid-Car Bar)
20110-20146	37	Amclub (18 Club Seats+28 Coach Seats)
20200-20233	34	Amdinette (32-Seat Dinette+23 Coach Seats)
20675-20677	3	Amclub (33 Club Seats)
20750-20752	3	Amdinette (32-Seat Dinette+20 Coach Seats)
21000-21270	271	84-Seat Amcoach
21800-21889	90	60-Seat Amcoach

This roster does give a total of 492 cars, however it doesn't match the breakdown of 406 Amcoaches and 86 Amcafes as stated in the 1977 announcement. But, if the Amclub cars are counted as coaches, it would come close, with 401 coaches & club cars, and 91 cafe and dinette cars. However, five of the partial Amclub cars were reconfigured to full Amclub cars not long after delivery. This doesn't actually change the totals, but if the five full Amclub cars had instead been reconfigured from Amcafe or Amdinette cars, and all the Amclub cars were counted as coaches, the breakdown would have matched the one listed in the 1977 announcement. Perhaps Amtrak's plans changed slightly between the announcement and the changes.

Over the years, Amfleet I cars were rebuilt and renumbered for various reasons. Cars that were equipped for Push/Pull service (with a locomotive on one end of the train and a cab car at the other, allowing the train to run in either direction without being turned) were numbered into various series in the 40000s and a rebuilding program in the early 2000s saw many of the cars renumbered into the 80000s. Other renumberings occurred when cars were made ADA accessible, assigned to Metroliner service, and/or configured as Business Class cars. The following roster lists all the number series that Amfleet I cars carried. Not all of the numbers in some of these series were used. The numbers that were the original numbers are in bold.

Numbers	Push/Pulls #s	Configuration
20000-series	43000-series	Café
20100-series	48100-series	Club (Partial)
20150-series	48150-series	Club-Dinette
20200-series	48200-series	Dinette
20250-series	48250-series	Dinette (Business Class)
20670-series		Club (Full)
20675-series		Club (Partial) (Long-Distance)
20750-series		Dinette (Long-Distance)
20900-series	48900-series	Metroliner Dinette
	48950-series	Metroliner Club (Full) (Temporary)
20970-series	48970-series	Metroliner Club (Full)
23000-series		Dinette-Lounge
28300-series	43300-series	Lounge/Grill
28305-series	43305-series	Café/Lounge
28340-series	43340-series	Full Dinette
28390-series		Twilight Lounge
85000-series	85500-series	Café

21000-series	44000-series	84-Seat Coach
21600-series	44600-series	ADA Coach
21700-series	44700-series	ADA Coach (Business Class)
21800-series	44800-series	60-Seat Coach (Long-Distance)
21900-series	44900-series	Metroliner Coach
22900-series		Coach-Sleeper (Long-Distance)
81000-series	81500-series	Regional Coach (Business Class)
82000-series	82500-series	Regional Coach

I don't have enough information to construct a complete Amfleet I roster, but based mostly on data from On Track On Line, I have made up the following rosters of Amfleet I cars. They are not complete, but I am putting them online in the hope that someone will be able to use them. The numbers that are original are in bold, and all the other cars would have had to be renumbered from them. In many cases, renumberings were done so that a car's last two or three digits would stay the same, especially the renumberings for Push/Pull and ADA. Numbers in black are numbers that were actually used, based on information from On Track On Line or pictures from various sites. Numbers in grey may or may not have been used.

Click on the following link to go to the roster:

Amtrak Amfleet I Roster

With the release of Amtrak By The Numbers by David C. Warner, all of this effort became unnecessary, as this book has a complete Amtrak roster.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Amtrak Amfleet I Roster

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