The General Lafayette sign on the side of the garden…

The General Lafayette sign on the side of the garden…. . , The General Lafayette sign on the side of the garden has an interesting history. That nameplate was once on the side of the Amtrak Lounge car 3123. When Amtrak took charge of all U.S. passenger service in 1971, it inherited cars from over 40 different railroads. The General Lafayette was built by the Budd Railcar Company in Philadelphia in 1951 for the Pennsylvania Railroad and was numbered 7131. A picture of that car painted in the Tuscan Red and Silver livery is shown here. This car was part of a 64 car order to create the Morning Congressional and Afternoon Congressional (NY-DC) and the Senator (DC-Boston). The Lafayette was one of 18 first class parlour cars which had 22 seats and a drawing room for meetings. All the parlour cars carried names of Revolutionary War heroes or early Colonial leaders such as Betsy Ross, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, Roger Morris or William Penn. The Congressionals began operation in early 1952 and lasted until 1971., Amtrak rebuilt this car and a number of its sister cars into lounge cars. A photo of that car is also shown. This car saw service throughout the system but its last assignment was on the NY-Montreal Adirondack train. The car was eventually retired in the mid-1990s and stored in Beech Grove, Indiana.