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Upon further investigation, much of the MP passenger car usage by Amtrak is documented by Fred Frailey in Zephyrs, Chiefs and Other Orphans, pages 48-49.
According to Frailey, Amtrak was desperately trying to replace the failure-prone Penn Central cars with anything non-PC. On June 25, 1971, MP coaches 466-467 and MP diner coaches 580-582 were placed in service. Sample consists for the three sets of Washington-Kansas City equipment in July 1971 were as follows:
2 E units
Baggage: PC 9165, PC 9145, or PC 9196
10-6 sleeper: UP 1407, PC 4334, or PC 4334
64-seat coach: MP 466, PC 2950, or MP 467
diner-coach: MP 582, MP 580, or PC 4545
10-6 sleeper: UP 1421, UP 1408, or UP 1410 (on at Harrisburg, to/from NYC on #40-41)
44-seat coach: PC 3002, PC 3004, or PC 3000 (on at Harrisburg, to/from NYC on #40-41)
An additional coach, 10-6 sleeper and storage mail car operated Washington to Harrisburg on #30-31 and were then switched to #40-41 at Harrisburg to or from Chicago.
The MP diner-coaches (and presumably the MP coaches) were phased out in mid-August 1971, replaced by SCL 36-seat diners 5953, 5957 and 5958.
Bill Pollard
