QUICK FACTS

Model: dining car
Built: 1949
Builder: Budd Company, Philadelphia, PA
Past Railroad Owners: Lackawanna, Erie Lackawanna
Current Owner: TOYX, Inc.

Diner No. 469 was one of just two dining cars built for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad by the Budd Company in 1949 for use on the two trainsets of the Lackawanna’s brand-new train, the Phoebe Snow. The brainchild of Lackawanna President William White, the train was inaugurated on November 15, 1949 and operated between Hoboken and Buffalo on the Lackawanna’s route via Scranton. Named after the Lackawanna’s long-time mascot, the train quickly became a rousing success. Diner No. 469 could originally seat 36 persons at a time for meal service.

When the Lackawanna merged with its chief competitor, the Erie Railroad, on October 17, 1960, the No. 469 was renumbered to Erie Lackawanna No. 769. The Phoebe Snow began operating as a combined train with the Erie-Lackawanna Limited (formerly the Erie Limited) on April 30, 1961 over the Lackawanna’s original route from Hoboken to Binghamton and beyond on the Erie to Chicago. The Phoebe Snow name was dropped altogether on October 28, 1962. However, with the appointment of William White as the Erie Lackawanna’s president on June 18, 1963, he ordered the Phoebe Snow name reinstated. The train’s name was restored on October 27, 1963, and the No. 769 continued to serve on the Phoebe Snow until the train’s final run on November 27, 1966.

After the discontinuation of the Phoebe Snow, the No. 769 found work on the Lake Cities, the Erie Lackawanna’s sole remaining long-distance passenger train. This former Erie train operated from Hoboken to Chicago, and like the Erie-Lackawanna Limited, it had also been re-routed over the ex-Lackawanna route on April 30, 1961. The No. 469 continued in this service until the Lake Cities was discontinued on January 6, 1970, after which the No. 769 joined the rest of the Erie Lackawanna’s dining car fleet in storage in the Port Jervis yard.

The No. 769 was eventually sold by the Erie Lackawanna to the James E. Strates Shows carnival in 1972. By 1975, the car had been resold to Butterworth Tours, which used the car in private car service on the Rock Island's Quad Cities and Peoria Rockets. The Rock Island, which had not transferred its intercity passenger trains to Amtrak in 1971, finally shut down passenger operations in 1978. Ownership of the car was assumed by Morrison-Knudsen, who had completed repairs on the car before entering service for Butterworth.

In the early 1980s, the car was sold to a group of Memphis-area railroad enthusiasts, who formed a group that would become the Memphis Transportation Museum. The car operated in excursion service in the Norfolk Southern steam program and on other area railroads. After the NS steam program ceased operations in the 1990s, the car was moved to Collierville, Tennessee (a Memphis suburb) for static display.

In March of 2007, the No. 469 and other cars parked in Collierville opened as The Tennessean Dinner Train, a stationary dining establishment. The Tennessean closed in March of 2009, and the Dining Car Society purchased the car in 2010. It was repaired in place in Collierville and, after restoring its original No. 469, the car was moved to home Lackawanna rails in Scranton, Pennsylvania in April of 2012. The interior of the No. 469 underwent a complete operational restoration between 2013 and 2017, and it was used for events and meal service in the Scranton area. Seating capacity was expanded to 48 persons during the restoration. The car was moved to Port Jervis, NY on April 21, 2022.

The exterior of No. 469 will be restored to its authentic Lackawanna appearance thanks to a generous grant. It is used for stationary meal service on-site in Port Jervis, as well as for off-site events like Operation Toy Train’s annual Toys for Tots collection train.