the Olympian Hiawatha railroad observation cars

the above is from http://www.coffeedrome.com/dayhi.html and they have a couple more interior photos

Above image via http://cruiselinehistory.com/?p=233

Above image via http://dummidumbwit.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/twin-cities-olympian-hiawathas-milwaukee-road/

not exactly the interior view of the top two photos, but close enough

The 10 Skytops, created by industrial designer Brooks Stevens http://wisconsinology.blogspot.com/2009/02/brooks-stevensthe-designer-of-20.html in 1948, were probably the most distinctive cars ever built. Milwaukee Road built the 4 parlor cars in their own shops (1 drawing room and 24 parlor seats) and had Pullman Standard build 6 sleepers, each with 8 bedrooms and a lounge. The observation ends on the Milwaukee built cars are more of a bullet than the Pullman built cars, with the rear couch about 4 inches narrower.

The lounges served on the Chicago - Minneapolis "Hiawatha Service" until 1970, and the sleepers were on the "Olympian Hiawatha" until 1964, then were sold to CN.

CN renamed them "Skyview" cars, and used them mainly on their Halifax-Montreal trains, the 'Ocean Limited' and the 'Scotian', from 1965 to 1969. They saw brief service on Montreal-Toronto corridor trains in 1969, then moved to the Gaspé-Montreal and Jasper-Prince Rupert routes until their withdrawal from service in September 1971.
Due to fire regulations (no rear door - only one access), the cars found no further use and 2 were scrapped in Canada and the other 4 sold back into the US.

One is on display in Glenview Illinois, another is permanent display at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, Fla. http://moas.org/collections.html

restored tourist attraction steam locomotive was heavily damaged by derailing and falling on it's side because thieves removed the railroad ties

The locomotive – which dedicated volunteers spent many years restoring to working order – was substantially damaged.

The railroad ties are wood planks about 8 inches tall by 12 inches wide and “tie” the rails to the trackbed. Without sleepers, the rails would spread and topple under the weight of a train – which is what happened (interesting to me for the breadth of information about the variety of railroad ties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_tie and for an intriguing photo and information about railroad ties being baked in creosote http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900?size=_original )

The stolen ties were made from hard Australian yarra wood, and are highly prized for making furniture – and sometimes for firewood – and in recent years, railway lines all over South Africa have been targeted by sleeper thieves. Some lines have lost so many sleepers that they have been closed since the cost of replacement has been deemed uneconomic.

Yesterday’s derailment happened on a line that sees many tourist trains during the year. The thieves don’t really care about the consequences, either for innocent passengers or for tourism as a whole. The cost of repairing the locomotive will be a heavy burden for the club which receives no funding other than what it earns from running tourist trains. The cost of repairing the damaged track will run into many thousands of rand – and Transnet is not keen to spend money looking after lines that are not part of its core network.

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/wanderer/2010/06/21/thieves-derail-train-and-give-sa-tourism-a-kick-in-the-head/
via http://tukkers.blogspot.com/ which is NSFW (not safe for work)

Some people have great Flikr sets, but don't post to Tumbler or Blog.. damn shame. These are from a good photographer's Flikr pool

via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/citroen250/collections/72157615057986546/