Grand Canyon Railway

Budd Coach

Named after the famous Budd Manufacturing Company, these streamliner-era coaches will get you from point A to point unbelievable with grace and style. From Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend, the cars provide air-conditioned cool. Complimentary soft drinks provided.

The Budd Manufacturing Company and the Streamliner Era

From the 1930s until 1989 The Budd Company was also a leading manufacturer of stainless steel streamlined passenger rolling stock for a number of railroads. They built the famed Pioneer Zephyr for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1934, and hundreds of streamlined lightweight stainless steel passenger cars for new trains in the USA in the 1930s and 1940s.

... when Zephyrus [the west wind] blows sweetly on the tender shoots in every forest and heath, and the young sun has run halfway through its course in the sign of the Ram...then people long to go on pilgrimages...
-- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

It's easy to see how Chicago, Burlington & Quincy president Ralph Budd found the name for his most celebrated train. He had been reading one of the world's great literary works, The Canterbury Tales, which begins with pilgrims setting out on a journey, inspired by the budding springtime and by Zephyrus, the gentle and nurturing west wind. What better name for a sleek new traveling machine than Zephyr? Budd certainly needed new winds to begin blowing for his railroad. When he took over the Burlington on January 1, 1932, the Depression was crushing the passenger rail industry. Budd wanted his new train to get the public's pulse racing. It did. By the end of the 1930s, passenger rail travel was fashionable again. In the 1950s Budd built a set of two-story or high-level cars for the Santa Fe's El Capitan and Super Chief passenger trains, which traveled the main line that goes through Williams from Chicago to Los Angeles, and became the prototypes for the Amtrak Superliner cars of the 1980s. Budd also built two-story gallery passenger cars for Chicago-area commuter service on the Milwaukee Road, Burlington Route, and Rock Island lines duing the 1960s and 1970s; most of these cars are still in service on today's Metra routes. Stainless steel Budd cars originally built for the Canadian Pacific Railway's 1955 train The Canadian are still in service with Via Rail Canada.

Fully Stocked

GCR owns 14 coaches that comprise Budd Coach Class. They came from the Joint Powers Board (CALTRAIN). The vintage 1950s stainless steel cars – which match the Railway’s first-class cars – were built by the famous Budd Manufacturing Company. Refurbished by Grand Canyon Railway’s locomotive shop in 2005-2006, these coach class cars offer guests air-conditioning and better serve passengers with disabilities. Each new car can comfortably fit wheelchairs in the aisle and four feature wheelchair accessible restrooms.
 

The Pioneer Zephyr was built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), commonly known by the shorter name of Burlington. The train, which featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named Zephyr and was meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States. The train's construction included innovations such as shotwelding (a specialized type of spot welding) to join the stainless steel, and articulation to reduce the train's weight. On May 26, 1934 it set a speed record for travel time between Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, when it made a 1,015-mile (1,633 km) non-stop "dawn-to-dusk" dash, covering the distance in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of 77 mph (124 km/h). For one section of the run, the train reached a speed of 112.5 mph (181 km/h), just short of the then-US land speed record of 115 mph (185 km/h). The historic dash inspired two films and the train's nickname, "Silver Streak". The trainset entered regular revenue service on November 11, 1934 between Kansas City, Missouri, Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. It was operated on this route until its retirement in 1960 when it was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago where it remains on public display. The train is generally regarded as the first successful streamliner on American railroads.