By Phil Kabler, Staff Writer, Charleston Gazette-Mail; October 24, 2019
HUNTINGTON — On the eve of the inaugural run of the Autumn Colors Express, workers spent Thursday afternoon loading ice, bottled water and other supplies onto the 21-car consist — a combination of private rail cars familiar to New River Train riders, and some historic cars making their first runs on the fall excursion route.
Most notable of those will be bringing up the rear for the first leg of the Huntington-to-Hinton roundtrip: The Cedar Rapids, a parlor-observation car that was the jewel of the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha trains of the 1940s and ’50s.