Keystone (train)

The Keystone was a set of eight lightweight streamlined cars that the Budd Company built in 1956 for the Pennsylvania Railroad: seven coaches seating a total of 574 passengers and one head end power generator car. The coaches had a split-level layout in which the middle of each car sat two feet below the floor of a standard coach, which lowered the center of gravity so the train could take curves faster. They were also built as a stressed-skin tubular shell with no heavy steel underframe, so each car weighed only about 60 percent as much as a standard one. Passengers disliked the short stairways between levels, which caused bottlenecks in loading, and the design was not a success. The set made two daily round trips between New York and Washington under the names Morning, Midday, Evening and Midnight Keystone, alongside conventional dining and parlor cars. It was retired in 1968, passed through Amtrak and the Michigan transit authority SEMTA, and was sold to the Chicago, Central and Pacific Railroad in 1986.