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Description
Grand Canyon Railway Depot, Williams Arizona, October 19th, 2022.

When I got tired of the bright sun in the top level, I spent some time relaxing on the lower level of this car. A few of the staff had the same idea. The lower level looked like a Victorian era lounge, with comfortable individual chairs that faced the center of the room rather than the windows.
The following has been shamelessly lifted from an article written by Loretta James, originally published: May 23, 2017 in the Williams-Grand Canyon News.

Few people have left a mark on the South Rim as indelible as Fred Harvey and his favored architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter.
Grand Canyon Railway recently honored Colter by commissioning a new luxury train car in her name.
The Mary Colter now joins the Fred Harvey as the train’s two luxury dome cars — cars with elevated seating and a glass-domed roof designed to give riders clutter-free view of the northern Arizona countryside on the two-and-a-half hour ride to the Grand Canyon. Each car measures 85 feet long and carries 66 passengers in the full-length elevated dome.
“(This car) was budgeted for $1.2 million, two and it came in under budget so we didn’t spend quite that much,” said Karl Zicopoulos, manager of the car shop in Williams.

The train car came from Colorado as an ex-American Orient Express car. It was gutted from the inside out, with many custom made mechanical parts, furniture and various other
“We designed it. Basically me and a couple of girls working on the train — because no one designs these cars, we do that ourselves. We’re all trying to figure out what looks good,” Zicopoulos said. “There is all new rubber, all new glass, paint, wood — we spent close to $70,000 on the woodwork alone, which is predominantly downstairs.”
Every three months the car is taken out of service for a three day break for routine maintenance and upkeep.
“If something happens to it in the mean time we’ll take it out of service because we have to,” Zicopoulos said.
The Mary Colter entered service in 2017 after a year-long restoration. Prior to joining the Grand Canyon Railway fleet, the train car, built in 1955 was called the ‘River View.’ It mainly served Great Northern Railway’s Empire Builder Train between Chicago and Seattle. Her sister car, the Fred Harvey, also served the Empire Builder as the ‘Mountain View.’ Eventually, the cars were sold to the Grand Luxe, where they served on the American Orient Express as the ‘New Orleans’ and ‘Copper Canyon.’ Both cars were purchased by Grand Canyon Railway in 2009.

Description
Grand Canyon Railway Depot, Williams Arizona, October 19th, 2022.

When I got tired of the bright sun in the top level, I spent some time relaxing on the lower level of this car. A few of the staff had the same idea. The lower level looked like a Victorian era lounge, with comfortable individual chairs that faced the center of the room rather than the windows.
The following has been shamelessly lifted from an article written by Loretta James, originally published: May 23, 2017 in the Williams-Grand Canyon News.

Few people have left a mark on the South Rim as indelible as Fred Harvey and his favored architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter.
Grand Canyon Railway recently honored Colter by commissioning a new luxury train car in her name.
The Mary Colter now joins the Fred Harvey as the train’s two luxury dome cars — cars with elevated seating and a glass-domed roof designed to give riders clutter-free view of the northern Arizona countryside on the two-and-a-half hour ride to the Grand Canyon. Each car measures 85 feet long and carries 66 passengers in the full-length elevated dome.
“(This car) was budgeted for $1.2 million, two and it came in under budget so we didn’t spend quite that much,” said Karl Zicopoulos, manager of the car shop in Williams.

The train car came from Colorado as an ex-American Orient Express car. It was gutted from the inside out, with many custom made mechanical parts, furniture and various other
“We designed it. Basically me and a couple of girls working on the train — because no one designs these cars, we do that ourselves. We’re all trying to figure out what looks good,” Zicopoulos said. “There is all new rubber, all new glass, paint, wood — we spent close to $70,000 on the woodwork alone, which is predominantly downstairs.”
Every three months the car is taken out of service for a three day break for routine maintenance and upkeep.
“If something happens to it in the mean time we’ll take it out of service because we have to,” Zicopoulos said.
The Mary Colter entered service in 2017 after a year-long restoration. Prior to joining the Grand Canyon Railway fleet, the train car, built in 1955 was called the ‘River View.’ It mainly served Great Northern Railway’s Empire Builder Train between Chicago and Seattle. Her sister car, the Fred Harvey, also served the Empire Builder as the ‘Mountain View.’ Eventually, the cars were sold to the Grand Luxe, where they served on the American Orient Express as the ‘New Orleans’ and ‘Copper Canyon.’ Both cars were purchased by Grand Canyon Railway in 2009.