Going into the winter of 1994, the marketing department of Philip Morris was looking for a way to top their successful Marlboro Adventure Team promotion. What better way than to offer customers a chance to win a week aboard a luxury passenger train gliding through rough, rugged Marlboro Country?
With that in mind, PM set out to build the Marlboro Unlimited, a 21-car 'cruise ship on rails'. No expense was to be spared on the construction of what would have been the most well-appointed passenger train ever built. Passengers would sleep under the stars in specially built domed sleeping cars. They would dine and relax in matching dining cars and lounge cars. There would be night clubs, restaurants, a library, and even a cinema on board.
By day, sweepstakes winners would set out on adventures of all sorts -- from horseback riding to white water rafting. By night, they would relax in style aboard their five-star hotel on wheels.
The train would have run on a Southern Route and a Northern Route, with all trips planned to fall between August 1996 and Fall 1997. The train would have departed northbound from Denver Union Station, terminate in Billings, MT, then turn and begin a southbound trip from Billings to Denver with a whole new set of sweepstakes winners.
By August 1995, a nationwide promotional rail tour was in the planning to take a five-piece train out for a preview. The promotional tour train was to consist of a locomotive, a sleeper, the dining car that had a galley, the spa car, and either the lounge car with Charlie Russell's or the Cinema Car.
A model train tour was also in the works to travel in conjunction with the Marlboro Concert Series. The model would allow concert goers a preview of the exterior and interior of the train. Ultimately, a 3/4" scale model some 35 feet long was built and used in the Marlboro Unlimited promotional VHS video.
The effort saw $90k spent on track improvements at the Garrison, MT wye. About $500k was spent on the station at Billings, MT -- including a new roof, and the addition of a 1737 foot siding in front of the station. Two state-of-the-art EMD F59PHI diesel locomotives were constructed and leased for the project. Seven Prevost buses were built, and fifteen of the passenger railcars were partially constructed.
But despite the tremendous design, logistics, and construction efforts of hundreds of people, the train just wasn't meant to be.
Construction delays and shifting priorities for the PM marketing department meant the train would never turn a wheel. By mid-1997, the promotion was cancelled and the partially-built railcars dismantled. The Prevost buses were returned to the lessor; the locomotives repainted before going into service with Metrolink in Los Angeles.
Still, what a train it would have been. |
