The five railroads known to have used RDC's with non-RDC trailers:
M&St.L. with express-type boxcars
C&O ex M&StL RDC4s with a heavyweight mail storage car
C&EI with a propane-heater equipped P-S coach
CRI&P with a prewar Rocket round end obs, with a baggage compartment in the round end. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3227119 RI had at least one coach also equipped to trail an RDC.
CNJ had some commuter coaches with trainline wires so 5 RDC's plus one of them made a six car train.
NYC RDC's were equipped with steam lines and hauled behind conventional trains, a practice followed on the CRI&P (without steam lines) as well.
New Haven with a silver-painted American Flyer coach, until told to stop by Budd.
I recall a RDC1 being used to switch 40ft boxcars in Reading Terminal (Philadelphia) during the early to mid 70s! Why boxcars were spotted in the passenger shed is a mystery to me. It seems to me they were Reading Co. cars, perhaps company material service. This was well past the age of express service on the Reading (other than newspaper bundles carried in the vestibules of Budd cars headed for Reading/Pottsville).
Here's the question/clue:
This train was an illumination from Hoboken.
Another clue:
The color of the illumination is part of the train name.
I would say the Blue Comet, but that ran out of Jersey City.
rfpjohn I would say the Blue Comet, but that ran out of Jersey City.
Sorry rfpjohn, wrong color and the train ran out of Hoboken.
What you can find when you're looking for something else...
DL&W Twilight from Hoboken to Buffalo. Sometimes carried cars for Toronto and Detroit via NYC(/TH&B/CP)
rcdrye What you can find when you're looking for something else... DL&W Twilight from Hoboken to Buffalo. Sometimes carried cars for Toronto and Detroit via NYC(/TH&B/CP)
Not exactly. You got the RR and the endpoints right, but not the actual name.
All of the references I've found show the DL&W's Twilight without any Limited, Express or other extension. I don't find a reference to any other "light" trains.
1956 DL&W timetable lists The Phoebe Snow, The Twilight (I did leave out the "The"), The Westerner, and the Owl on the NewYork (Hoboken) to Buffalo run. By that time the through cars with NYC were gone.
Phoebi Snow (white)
Miss Snow alights, her frock still WHITE. She took the road of anthracite.
rcdrye All of the references I've found show the DL&W's Twilight without any Limited, Express or other extension. I don't find a reference to any other "light" trains. 1956 DL&W timetable lists The Phoebe Snow, The Twilight (I did leave out the "The"), The Westerner, and the Owl on the NewYork (Hoboken) to Buffalo run. By that time the through cars with NYC were gone.
Go back a little further...you're seeing the "light". Look at daveklepper's latest answer for further insight.
daveklepper Phoebi Snow (white) Miss Snow alights, her frock still WHITE. She took the road of anthracite.
Miss Snow's frock may have been white, but the color was not part of her name, unlike the train I'm looking for. Look at rcdrye's latest answer for further insight.
ZephyrOverland Not exactly. You got the RR and the endpoints right, but not the actual name.
DL&W No's 9 & 14, the Whitelight.
Mark
KCSfan ZephyrOverland Not exactly. You got the RR and the endpoints right, but not the actual name. Mark
happy to have helped and look forward to your question.
Each of three railroads that ran between two major cities designated one of their trains as being "non-stop" while in fact all three made at least one intermediate stop. All of the roads had other trains that ran between the same two cities on faster schedules than those of the "non-stops". Name the railroads and the trains they billed as being "non-stop".
KCSfan Each of three railroads that ran between two major cities designated one of their trains as being "non-stop" while in fact all three made at least one intermediate stop. All of the roads had other trains that ran between the same two cities on faster schedules than those of the "non-stops". Name the railroads and the trains they billed as being "non-stop". Mark
Johnny
Why do I think the C&EI overnight train was called the "Silent Knight"? I recall my C&EI tt has that goofy picture of that suit of armor on it.
FlyingCrow Why do I think the C&EI overnight train was called the "Silent Knight"? I recall my C&EI tt has that goofy picture of that suit of armor on it.
Deggesty The IC had the Diamond Special--but no faster overnight train, although a day train was faster. The C&A had the Dearborn, and the C&EI had the Midnight Express;
The IC had the Diamond Special--but no faster overnight train, although a day train was faster. The C&A had the Dearborn, and the C&EI had the Midnight Express;
Close enough Johnny. You've mentioned all three trains and railroads but got two of them mixed up. The Dearborn was the C&EI train and the Midnight Special was the C&A train.
Yes, I misremembered my notes when I answered the question. It is interesting that the C&EI dropped out of the market before the Wabash did.
There was one Pullman accommodation that existed in three configurations; each configuration was originally consigned to a particular train. All of the cars were built by Pullman Standard.
If you had day only Pullman service, Pullman required six seat tickets, though there were only two berths in the room. At least one railroad required two and a half rail tickets for the use of berth service--and five rail tickets for seat service.
What was the nature of the accommodation, and what trains would you ride to occupy it?
Pullman's Master Room was built in cars for these trains:
New York Central's Twentieth Century Limited
4 cars 1 MR, 1DBR Plan 4079 (rebuilt to 4DBR plan 4079A in 1946)
Pennsylvania's Broadway Limited
1938 version 2 Master Room, 1 DBR 4 cars for Broadway Limited, 2 cars for Liberty limited (all View series) Plan 4080 PRR assigned one or more to Parlor service in the mid 1950s.
1948 Broadway Limited 2 MR, 1 DBR (Mountain View, Tower View) Plan 4133
Southern (PRR/SR/WPR/L&N) 1 MR, 2 DR Crescent series plan 4160
Southern's version had a third, upper berth like a drawing room.
Right! I missed seeing the Mountain View and Tower View, so you went me one better--and I did not remember that the Crescent series had an upper berth. I understand that each room also had a shower. Whereas the PRR and NYC cars were Buffet-lounge-observation cars, the Crescents were built for mid-train operation, and were Buffet-lounge cars.
Even though I used the lounge section in a Crescent car several times, I never had occasion to even look inside a master room. I did spend part of one night in the lounge stretched out on a sofa (I boarded in Greenville), where I slept until we reached Gainesville, woke, ate breakfast--and when I returned to the lounge, a porter put me into a bedroom in Caroline County (RF&P sleeper), where I stayed until we arrived in Atlanta.
I rode in one of the Crescent cars in 1975 (can't tell you which one) in the Master Room, which was not all that much more expensive than a DBR at that point. SR guys I had breakfast with said it usually ran empty so was popular for company travel between Atlanta and Washington. Shower was much larger than in-room Superliner shower today. All of the Master Rooms did have showers as far as I know.
One of the two MRs in the PRR cars, and the only one in the NYC cars, could be joined en-suite with the DBR to sleep four. Prewar PRR cars are listed with 1956 retirerement dates by the Pullman Project.
The prewar PRR cars were round-end, postwar ones flat-end.
I'll post someting later this evening.
Budd built four series of "feature" sleepers with the same feature for four different trains. In the order they actually entered service, the first series had four rooms of two different types, the second had nine rooms of three different types, the third had twelve rooms of three different types, and the fourth had the same layout as the first.
What was the "feature", and what were the four trains?
The feature is the dome. The third series was built for both the Burlington and the NP for the North Coast Limited and may also have been used on the Mainstreeter at times. The others might be sleeper-obs cars for the DZ, CZ, and Canadian. And the four trains ran on five different railroads. In cases 1, 2, and 4, at least one room probablyi was not a revenue sleeping space. If sleeper-obs cars don't count, I am stuck. I don't think the SP&S counts, because the dome-sleeper ran to Seattle.
You got three of four. NP's were built for the NCL, CB&Q's (D&RGW/WP) for the CZ, CPR's for the Canadian, Dominion and Atlantic. The other series was built for a train that never ran.
ALL:
As information, the SPS owned one of the NCL dome sleepers, which indicated it was in the Portland line as needed. The SPS dome sleeper was re-painted SPS colors before the merger. I had a picture of it, but can't find it not. It was a subject of a forum less than a year ago. I suspect the re-paint job to spite the NP or GN.
The other dome cars you mentioned were for the "Chessie", which never ran. These three cars went to the B&O. In addition, threechair-dome-observation cas were sold to the D&RGW.
Ed Burns
Even though I got three out of the four, Ed Burns knew the whole answer and had all the details, and I'll be happy to have him ask the next question on this thread.
I did not know the NP cars were second-hand and that had different configuratiohs. Live and learn.
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