Delaware & Ulster (Acadian) Budd tavern-lounge car “Silver Queen”

Still wearing its former name, The Olive Branch, started life as Minneapolis & St. Louis #52, built by Budd in 1948 as part of a six-car order. These six cars held down trailer duty behind the railroad’s 1929 fleet of eleven General Electric self-propelled gas-electric cars. The M&St. L. only offered limited passenger service but purchased the cars to improve accommodations during the age of streamliners. As built, the #52 was a 64 reclining-seat chair car. As the 50’s wore on, declining ridership and the introduction of new streamlined self-propelled cars, made the coaches surplus, resulting in their 1957 sale to the Rock Island. As a centerpiece of the D&U’s Rip Van Winkle Flyer, the tavern-lounge now provides the most luxurious creature comforts of any indoor space in this part of the Catskills – that it happens to be on rails is simply a delight.