What Happened to the C1's?

For those of us (myself proudly included) who live out in LIRR diesel territory have heard of the C3s- (or even better have not just heard of them) the LIRR’s cool-looking bi-level coaches that get pulled by diesel engines.

But what few know is that the C3s actually had a predecessor- the C1s. The C1s were prototype cars built by Kawasaki for the LIRR to tour around the railroad to show off these new, futuristic systems and amenities to see if it appealed to passengers and to see if it would “work” on the LIRR.

To be honest, the C1s were basically just a scaled-back version of the C3s. They had the same basic general design, and the same basic features, with the C3 just including a more full “suite of amenities.” The LIRR and Kawasaki basically just collected input from passengers to create the trains we now call the C3s. They only built them for testing purposes and not to stay in the fleet, explaining why only 10 were built. Time for a fun fact? Did you know that the FRA changed it’s definition in the book therefore the way that some C1s were coupled would be considered a “married pair”, similar to what we see on the M3s, M7s, and M9s, therefore technically there were 5 sets of C1s roaming around!

Here are a couple of videos for if you’d like to see these cars when they were in service:

When the LIRR made one of it’s best decisions to purchase the beloved C3s, the C1s became the oddballs of the fleet with no real purpose. They could only be pulled by certain modified engines, and to add insult to the injury, they couldn’t even be paired up with the C3s. And why weren’t they you may ask? They’re literally supposed to be very similar cars? Well, it’s the LIRR and who knows why. The C1s had different couplers and the C1s couplers proved to be a big limiting factor for those cars. The C1s couplers were actually quite similar to those found on the M1s and M3s, however, they obviously couldn’t be coupled to them as those were MU cars and these were powerless coaches and they couldn’t be coupled to C3s (or their engines for that matter) as the C3s had more conventional couplers and the C1s had 27-point jumpers (like just about every other railroad in the world), meanwhile the C3s had 36-point jumpers, a very odd choice. The C1s were also known to be a pain maintenance-wise requiring heavy maintenance and being a pain to maintain.

So, in the end, it would’ve cost much more to retrofit these cars for service with the other cars then it would to just buy 10 more C3s, therefore the LIRR chose the sad but much more logical decision. While the C1s had a short life, it was a fulfilling one and as a matter of fact, the C1s were also the first cars to get to experience dual-mode technology as they were the first cars to run on the LIRR’s new dual-mode train from Port Jefferson to Penn Station on weekday and as you can guess, people really took a liking for these 1 seat rides as we now have 11 of them per weekday!

(Photo: s2vAA777 on YouTube)

But whatever happened to the C1s?

When the LIRR was through with the C1s, they sat collecting dust for a while before being sold elsewhere to various heritage railways.

These C1s belonged to the Saratoga & North Creek Heritage Railway in Upstate NY which as of July 2018, sadly closed its doors. 

These C1s have been found on the Rio Grande Senic Railroad, however I can’t tell whether or not those cars are still there.

And if you'd like to actually board the C1s, the Cape Cod Central Rail Road also has some in service and as a added bonus, they are pulled by FL9's as they were in LIRR service.

And, I may even be visting Cape Cod Central Railway this Winter to ride the Polar Express train and experience these cars for myself, something I never got to experience before.

If you’d like to see more photos of this train, there’s a website with them. 

In conclusion, the C1s will always hold a special place in my heart for being the prototype to my favorite railcars.