General Pershing Zephyr

The General Pershing Zephyr was the ninth of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Zephyr streamliners and the last built as an integrated streamliner rather than a train hauled by a separate diesel locomotive. It was constructed in 1939, with bodywork and passenger cars by the Budd Company and the diesel engine and electric transmission by General Motors Electro-Motive Corporation, and it was named for General John J. Pershing because its Kansas City to St Louis route passed near his birthplace and boyhood home. The power car Silver Charger had a single 1,000 horsepower EMC 567 V-12 engine and was the last power unit Budd built in the shovelnose Zephyr style, while the three passenger cars Silver Leaf, Silver Eagle and Silver Star were named for United States Army badges of rank. Unlike the earlier Zephyrs it was not articulated, and Budd fitted it with disc brakes, the first practical installation of that kind on railroad passenger cars. Silver Charger remained in service until 1966 and is now at the National Museum of Transportation in St Louis.