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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A window into America’s railroad past will open up today as 10 private railcars stop in Albuquerque while en route to San Antonio, Texas, and the midterm meeting of the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners.

Association Executive Director Borden Black said the organization is dedicated to the preservation of vintage railroad cars and support of the nation’s cross-country rail network. Its 600 members own about 200 railroad cars, the oldest from 1911 and the newest from the late 1980s, he said.

The cars passing through Albuquerque will include dome and lounge cars, round-end observation cars and business and sleeper cars.

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Three were attached to an Amtrak train from Chicago that was scheduled to pull into the Alvarado Transportation Center Downtown on Friday afternoon; two will arrive from the West Coast about 11:42 a.m. today; and another five from Chicago at 3:55 p.m.

The cars will be moved to a siding and separated before being linked together and leaving Sunday about 8 a.m., pulled by a special engine with a “Heritage” paint motif commemorating Amtrak’s 40th anniversary in 2011, Black said.

Although visitors won’t get to board the privately owned rail cars, they will get to see them from the depot.

Among them:

The Dearing, originally an all-steel sleeper car built in 1925 by Pullman for the Great Northern Railway and operated on the Oriental Limited between Chicago-St. Paul, Seattle-Tacoma and Portland.

The car was rebuilt in the early 1950s as an office car with three bedrooms (one of them since removed), three baths, a dining room, observation end, kitchen and crew room.

The J. Pinckney Henderson Lounge Car, built in 1953 as a coach with 72 seats that was part of the “The Texas Special” operating between San Antonio, Texas, and St. Louis, Mo., on the Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad, otherwise known as the Katy.

It was rebuilt in 1983 as a luxurious private car with living room, a dining room, three bedrooms, three bathrooms and stainless steel kitchen.

Dagny Taggart Round End Observation Car, which was built in 1949 as an observation car for the New York Central.

The most recent owner renovated it in 2010.

The car was named after the heroine of the Ayn Rand novel “Atlas Shrugged,” who ran the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.

The Sierra Hotel, originally Silver Lounge, was built in 1948 as a midtrain lounge and dormitory car for use on the California Zephyr.

The car was taken over by Amtrak and later sold and transformed into its current configuration as a domed business car.

It has been a private charter car since 1980.