Aboard the North Coast Hiawatha During Its Last Days

I made it a point in September 1979 to make a trip from Chicago to Seattle aboard the North Coast Hiawatha.

The train was set to be discontinued on Oct. 1 although a court order kept it running for a few more days before the inevitable occurred.

Shown is the dome car assigned to No. 17. I made this image from an open vestibule door as the train made its way through Montana.

Dome cars on Amtrak’s western trains were becoming an endangered species at the time.

New Superliner equipment was coming and watching the Rocky Mountains from a dome would within another year or two become a thing of the past unless you were traveling in a private car.

No. 17 is on the tracks of the former Northern Pacific, which heavily promoted its use of dome cars on its North Coast Limited.

Tags: aboard Amtrak, Amtrak dome cars, Amtrak in Montana, Amtrak photographs, Amtrak photography, Amtrak Photos, Amtrak western long-distance trains, Amtrak's North Coast Hiawatha, Dome cars, North Coast Hiawatha, Northern Pacific