Con-Cor - 0001-040582 - Passenger Car, Lightweight, Amtrak Viewliner - Amtrak - 2313

Prototype History: The Viewliner cars were designed in the 1980s to replace the aging heritage passenger fleet acquired form the various railroads whose passenger service Amtrak replaced. The Viewliner design is a series of modular cars that can function as baggage, diners, sleepers and baggage-coach cars.

The first prototypes were built by Budd and went into use as early as 1988. The first production Viewliner cars went into service in the mid 1990s and were produced by Morrison-Knudsen. The later Viewliner II cars started production in 2012 and are produced by CAF USA.

The cars are single level types and are use on long-haul routes East of Chicago.

Road Name History: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a passenger railroad service that provides medium- and long-distance intercity service in the contiguous United States. Founded in 1971 through the government-sponsored consolidation of most of the remaining U.S. passenger rail companies, it is partially government-funded yet operated and managed as a for-profit corporation.

Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day on 21,300 miles (34,000 km) of track with select segments having civil operating speeds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 states in addition to three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2015, Amtrak served 30.8 million passengers and had $2.185 billion in revenue, while employing more than 20,000 people. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the 10 largest metropolitan areas; 83% of passengers travel on routes shorter than 400 miles. Its headquarters is at Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The name "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "trak", the latter itself a sensational spelling of "track".

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.