In the 1963 passenger car renumbering, stateroom coaches 850-855 became 494-499. These cars were often seen on trains 7-8, operating between St. Louis and Fort Worth. As Dick Ryker mentions in an earlier post, most of the stateroom doors were crudely marked (black Magic Marker ?) for “Crew Only”. My recollection is that the room was used as the conductor’s office, but I wonder if some other usage had been originally intended, perhaps as dorm space for the grill coach attendant.

Trains 7-8 had an odd arrangement with the grill coach attendant. For a number of years, a grill coach had operated between St. Louis and Fort Worth. Starting in August 1964, a notation appeared in the Official Guide advising that the grill would be closed between Little Rock and Marshall each way. This change possibly reflected the reduction in grill crew from two persons to one. It also meant that the grill was closed for lunch in both directions, with trains 7 and 8 showing a “meal stop” at Little Rock and Texarkana respectively, where station restaurants were available. I assume that this arrangement was so that a single grill attendant could have “off time” per union agreements. Could the assignment of a stateroom coach have initially been intended to provide dorm space for this attendant? My only memories of the grill southbound on #7 from Little Rock was with the attendant sitting at one of the empty tables in the grill car, reading the newspaper at noon, which at the time seemed to illustrate the Jenks approach to passenger service.

Bill Pollard