Terminal Railroad 9 car passenger special rolling thru over in East St. Louis on the Wiggins branch

From August 7th, 2024. So happy I decided not to see Amtrak 21 the southbound eagle come into Saint Louis at Cerre street from Chicago going to San Antonio so I could see this real unique TRRA passenger aka dinner train special over in east Saint Louis with my buddy Scott Nauert. We both caught it off Illinois Route 3 and Monsanto Avenue over on the other side of the Big Mac. It originated at St. Louis Union station in downtown Saint Louis ran east over the MacArthur bridge to valley junction then took the turnoff there to go up the Wiggins branch and then north towards granite city Illinois on that route then it will eventually return south and west back to downtown Saint Louis on the merchants bridge route or highline way back to Union station. Here’s the video I took of it earlier this evening at 7:07 pm. It’s got 2 terminal railroad GP38’s #’s 2008, and 2005 back to back pulling 9 passenger cars. Some of them are former Amtrak cars aka horizon coaches and the others are private cars. Most of these cars I’ve seen many times back then on the polar express train that operates out of St. Louis Union station during the holiday season in December. The trains special consist was as follows.
RPCX 1466 the HEP power & generator car
Heritage lounge car Silver Shore
Horizon coach RPCX 54506
Heritage coach 1593
Dome lounge 7007, Southern Hospitality
Baggage mail car now a lounge bar car, Silver Express
Horizon coaches RPCX 54528 and 54538
Dome lounge rounded end open platform observation car, Silver Chalet.
Hope you all like this wonderful video by me. Feel free to comment on it too. Enjoy! Jason.

[@sernajrlouis]

Cool video and channel just subscribed

[@4ever_railfan]

Thanks for sharing! Usually I see this train during the Christmas Holidays when I'm pulling into St. Louis on the Texas Eagle. 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

[@Goose_BW]

never stop in east saint louis