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Mary Colter train car welcomed to Grand Canyon Railway fleet

More than 32 electricians, train car mechanics, welders, painters and administrative assistants worked on the Mary Colter car over the last year to make sure it was ready for service.
Photo by Loretta James.

More than 32 electricians, train car mechanics, welders, painters and administrative assistants worked on the Mary Colter car over the last year to make sure it was ready for service.

Few people have left a mark on the South Rim as indelible as Fred Harvey and his favored architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter.

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The interior of the new Mary Colter train car.

Grand Canyon Railway recently honored Colter by commissioning a new luxury train car in her name.

The Mary Colter now joins the Fred Harvey as the train’s two luxury dome cars — cars with elevated seating and a glass-domed roof designed to give riders clutter-free view of the northern Arizona countryside on the two-and-a-half hour ride to the Grand Canyon. Each car measures 85 feet long and carries 66 passengers in the full-length elevated dome.

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New seats line the observation deck of the Mary Colter train car.

“(This car) was budgeted for $1.2 million, two and it came in under budget so we didn’t spend quite that much,” said Karl Zicopoulos, manager of the car shop in Williams.

The train car came from Colorado as an ex-American Orient Express car. It was gutted from the inside out, with many custom made mechanical parts, furniture and various other

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Architect Mary Colter.

“We designed it. Basically me and a couple of girls working on the train — because no one designs these cars, we do that ourselves. We’re all trying to figure out what looks good,” Zicopoulos said. “There is all new rubber, all new glass, paint, wood — we spent close to $70,000 on the woodwork alone, which is predominantly downstairs.”

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Electrician Ron Melton rewires a circuit breaker during a routine maintenance check on the Mary Colter train car.

Every three months the car is taken out of service for a three day break for routine maintenance and upkeep.

“If something happens to it in the mean time we’ll take it out of service because we have to,” Zicopoulos said.

The Mary Colter entered service in 2017 after a year-long restoration. Prior to joining the Grand Canyon Railway fleet, the train car, built in 1955 was called the ‘River View.’ It mainly served Great Northern Railway’s Empire Builder Train between Chicago and Seattle. Her sister car, the Fred Harvey, also served the Empire Builder as the ‘Mountain View.’ Eventually, the cars were sold to the Grand Luxe, where they served on the American Orient Express as the ‘New Orleans’ and ‘Copper Canyon.’ Both cars were purchased by Grand Canyon Railway in 2009.


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