While decent meals on the rails are probably gone for good, bar cars look set to have something of a comeback – at least on some of the trains running between New York City and CT.
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CT officials are planning on making an announcement about the bar cars later this week. A prototype bar auto is expected to be online by late 2018, with the others arriving beginning in late 2020.
Malloy will announce this week “the purchase of 60 new M8 rail cars, 10 of which are bar cars”, according to a report in the Connecticut Post. “It all started on the bar auto, really”, Nan Buziak Lexow told the Associated Press before the cars were phased out. At the time, they were believed to be the last of their kind in the country, although Amtrak still serves liquor in some of its cars.
Some say the bar cars brought people together. The cars had faux-wood paneling and red leather lounges that some riders say evoked a 1960s “Mad Men” vibe of martini gatherings.
The bar cars, which date back at least 50 years, were retired because they could not be coupled to a new fleet of train cars on the New Haven line.
Terri Cronin of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council, said the bar vehicle is more about camaraderie than cracking open a Coors.
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The M-8 cars are the same type the state has been purchasing from Kawasaki in recent years.
