In the mid 1950s the LT&L did one last hail mary to try and stem the steady erosion of their passenger base by purchasing a quartet of class DL7 passenger locomotive and a large basketful of streamlined Budd cars.

It was a good idea, but not good enough, and passenger numbers kept dropping until the LT&L came to an agreement to transfer passenger operations (and sell most of the LT&L’s passenger fleet) to VIA Rail Canada in 1979.

After the transfer to VIA, 14 coaches remained on the roster and were put into storage at the TdM shops in Iberville. Of these coachesm 1010 & 1011 were transferred to the Ontario Southwestern after it was officially made part of the Trust, followed, in the year 2000, by coach #1012 – renumbered as X123 –which had been rebuilt into a replica of one of VIA’s long-vanished Skyview lounge cars.

(After seeing the newly rebuilt #X123 the Delaware & Hudson asked the TdM shops to build them one as well, so #1015 was pulled out of storage and rebuilt as Skyview #X124. This one is assigned to the Trust’s official train and shares duties with 5TI #X103.)

In the early 2020s, the remaining 10 cards were sent to the BAR’s Derby shops, where they were rebuilt into class 18P trailers for a planned demonstration passenger service on the PV&T/B&Q/BAR lines from Portland, Maine to Bangor & Brownville Junction.

Along with the LT&L’s streamliner purchase, the PV&T also bought 6 class 9 coaches for the surviving joint trains. 5 of those coaches were transferred to Amtrak in 1971, but #X106 had been taken out of service a few years earlier and had been rebuilt into an office car for the Trust’s official train.

It’s still part of the train, though now it’s painted in the TdM’s “empire builder” orange & dark green paint scheme.