The Pioneer Zephyr is my favorite train of all time. It is the reason I returned to model railroading, and developing the N scale model kit in conjunction with Fine N-Scale Products was the seed for my "garage business", ProtoTrains.
Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr was rolled out of the Budd plant in Philadelphia on 9 April 1934, and christened as the Zephyr at PRR's Broad Street Station on 18 April. It was conceived as an economical day train, to revive ridership on the Kansas City-Omaha-Lincoln run. It replaced two conventional steam locomotives and six heavyweight cars, which together weighed eight times as much as the Zephyr.
In its original form, it was a three-car articulated train, riding on four Timken roller-bearing trucks. It was 197 feet long, and weighed 195,000 pounds. It had seats for 72 passengers, could carry 50,000 pounds of baggage and express, and contained a 30-foot mail compartment. It was built entirely of welded stainless steel. The disctinctive fluted sides and corrugated roof and floorpan introduced with this train served to stiffen the thin sheet metal used in its construction. The only rivets in the entire structure were those attaching the articulation castings to the car ends. The finest materials and furnishings were used throughout, and each passenger compartment was individually air-conditioned. It was powered by a 600-horsepower Winton diesel-electric powerplant.
On 26 May 1934, the Zephyr made a 1015-mile speed record run from Denver to Chicago, covering the distance in 785 minutes for an average speed of 77.6 miles per hour. It proceeded to the Century of Progress Exposition, where it was a star attraction along with Union Pacific's City of Salina. Before entering service, the Zephyr toured 222 cities in 31 states, covering 30,437 miles and being visited by over 2 million people.
On its second anniversary, it was re-christened Pioneer Zephyr in honor of its position as the first of the growing fleet of fluted stainless-steel streamlined trains in Burlington service.
The train was so popular that within its first year of service, a fourth car was added to its consist to handle the passenger bookings. Several cars were used temporarily, but in June 1938, 40-seat buffet/coach Car 500 was added as a permanent part of the Pioneer Zephyr's consist. At the same time, the 20-seat smoking section was removed from Car 505, which became a full-length baggage car. The Pioneer Zephyr's capacity in this form was 92 passengers. The Pioneer Zephyr remained a four-car train until late in its service life, when Car 500 was removed and placed in storage.
Besides the Kansas City-Omaha-Lincoln run, the Pioneer Zephyr was used on different routes through the Midwest, and it pioneered the Chicago-Denver run later handled by the Denver Zephyrs. The Pioneer Zephyr's final run took place on 20 March 1960, from Lincoln to Galesburg. On 26 May 1960, the Pioneer Zephyr was presented to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, having completed 3,222,898 miles in service.
There has been some dissention on the terminology used in accordance with stainless-steel passenger cars, namely "fluted" versus "corrugated". Since I'm a Burlington fan, and considering that the Pioneer Zephyr was the first stainless-steel streamlined train, I turn to it as the source for my usage of "fluted".
In the article "Burlington 'Zephyr' Completed at Budd Plant", printed in Railway Age in the April 14, 1934 issue, Ralph Budd (president of the CB&Q and the man who commissioned the Pioneer Zephyr) said:
By Ralph Budd's usage, "corrugated" meant a single sheet of material with corrugations pressed into it. "Fluted" meant a surface built up of individually-curved pieces. In the article "The Burlington Zephyr", published in Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (paper RR-56-3, 1934) E.C. Anderson (Mechanical Engineer, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad) said:The floor structure is made up of a corrugated sheet of stainless steel, the bottoms of the rectangular corrugations of which are welded to a flat sheet...
The roof constitues a primary structural member assuming the entire compression load. It is built-up of longitudinal corrugated sheets welded to roof carlines...
Unlike the stainless-steel cars previously built by the Budd company, the sheathing on the Burlington train is not all of the fluted type adopted to prevent the formation of shear lines and other weaves which would develop in the 0.020-in. sheets. Uncorrugated sheets of stainless steel are used around the curved surfaces at the front and rear ends of the train, on the curved roof at the rear end, and on the roof over the engine room...
The deadlight panels are also finished with smooth surfaces... Below the window rail are mounted the customary fluted side sheets.
The fluted side panels are 0.030-in. thick in the first car and 0.020-in. thick in the other two cars; they carry no load. The corrugated roof, belly, and floor materials are 0.020-in thick, this being the minimum thickness for load-carrying members.
Again, "fluted" refers to a surface built up of individually-curved pieces, while "corrugated" refers to panels with pressed-in ribbing.
If there are other authorities some use for their terminology, that's fine. I'm confident in using the term "fluted" when describing my favorite trains.
Spotting features that can help you make an accurate model for your time period.
Truck Mars Cabroof Fourth Rear
Date Shrouds Lights Vents Car Coupler Horn(s) Ref.
April 1934 Yes No No None No 1 Internal
June 1935 525 4:20
May 1936 None 4:25
Nov 1936 Becky Thatcher 4:20
Dec 1936 None 4:20
Jan 1937 525 4:25
May 1938 Yes No Yes 525 2 External 4:25
June 1938 500 4:25
April 1944 Yes No Yes 500 2 External 5
1947 Yes No Yes 500 2 External 3:161
Oct 1949 Yes Yes Yes 500 ? External 1:65
May 1954 No Yes Yes 500 1 External 6:45
Dec 1957 No Yes Yes 500 Yes 1 External 2:107
July 1958 No Yes Yes 500 1 External 3:144
Nov 1959 No Yes Yes None 1 External 1:66
References:
1. Burlington Route Color Pictoral Volume 1 by Alfred J. J. Holck
2. Chicago, Burlinton & Quincy in Color Volume 1 by Michael J. Spoor
3. The Hub of Burlington Lines West by Alfred J. J. Holck
4. "Pioneer", Railroad Model Craftsman, March 1971 by Marshall Thayer
5. Nebraska State Historical Society Photo 8190-5
6. "Forty Years Ago the Pioneer Zephyr Made History", Railroad, June, 1974
These layout drawings are accurate to the extent of my current knowledge of PZ, based on company strip drawings (thank you, Charlie!), vintage photographs, film footage, and measurements of PZ I took in Skokie. As always, when modeling a train that existed over a number of years, consult photographs taken in the time frame you're representing for exact details. Also see the timeline above. Only the original three cars of PZ had the tapered ends and elliptical underbody-- starting with Flying Yankee and Car 500, the ends were squared off and the underbodies were flat with radiused side panels.
Drawings in Z, N, and HO scales are presented as zipped Adobe PDF files so there is only one file to download(except for Z scale, which is only one sheet.) Right-click on a link and select "Save link as..." (or the equivalent using your favorite browser). When you have the file saved in your system, you can unzip the file and view/print it using Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar program.
Larger scale drawings are too large to laser-print without taping many small sheets together, and really need to be printed on a large-format raster plotter (such as an HP DesignJet.) For those of you with access to such a plotter, here are 1:48 and 1:32 drawings in PDF format: ADDED 29 Feb 2008
Here is a PDF (full size) of the PZ's "builder's plate", of which I took a rubbing at the open house in Skokie. It is engraved/etched in stainless steel, and welded on a side sheathing panel at the floor level. My photos of the plate didn't turn out, so I don't remember which car it is mounted on, but I think it is the middle car.
Here are copies of the instruction sheet (31k PDF file) and illustration sheet (190k PDF file) for the Fine N-Scale kit. (Please note that the contact information for Fine N-Scale Products is not current. Check the FNS website for the current information.)
For those of you with the Fine N-Scale kit, here is a dimensioned drawing (19k PDF file) of the engineroom roof vents added in the late 1930's. They can be made of styrene and superglued to the roof--or use your own favorite technique!
Richmond Controls sells several lighting kits for the PZ.
When the Pioneer Zephyr was retired in 1960 (after a 26-year service life!), the Burlington Route donated the train to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The train was in its original three-car configuration, although many interior and exterior details were left as they had been changed over the years.
Between 1994 and 1997, PZ was restored to its original configuration by Northern Railcar in Milwaukee, largely with money donated by the Grainger Foundation. Before PZ was installed in its new display at MST, W. W. Grainger Company hosted an open house at their corprate headquarters in Skokie, IL on October 12 and 13, 1997. I was able to go to the open house, which was my first time to see PZ in person. I had made the master models for the kit solely from vintage photographs, film footage and published drawings.
There was a long line of people waiting to see PZ.
The three cars of the train were mounted on lowboy trailers and housed under a large tent.
The cars were polished to a mirror finish, as the PZ was when it was originally introduced to the public.
The restored mailroom was stunning in its fresh varnish and paint. In the baggage room, metal that had originally
been galvanized appears to be painted silver.
All of the upholstery, carpets and linoleum are reproduced in their original colors.
The ceiling with the polished-zinc indirect lighting fixtures.
This article is ©2000-02 Randy Gordon-Gilmore. Last updated: 29 Feb 2008. Drawings updated 29 Feb 2008.