Which came first? Passenger car historical info request.

[littleboom]

Hello all!

I have a question involving heavyweight passenger cars. Which came first, the ones with the clerestory roofs or the Harriman style? What general time periods were they each used for? I've seen the Overtons with the clerestory roofs, so would they come first or is that a wrong assumption?

Just curious [8)]

Thanks!

Mike

[passengerfan]

Clerestory Roof heavyweights came frirst a direct descendent of the wood cars with clerestory roofs. Hope this helps.

[PBenham]

The so-called "Harriman" roof cars were designed to mitigate a problem the "conventional" celestory roof cars experienced with snow,cinders,dust or sand getting into the car through the vents. The "Harriman cars" had air intakes, with filters to, at least when the windows were closed keep cinders et al out of the car. But it took the perfection of passenger car air conditioning to solve the problem for good.

[wjstix]

Clerestory first, but they're both pretty old, think the first Harriman's came out around 1915.

[daveklepper]

Firs steel cars were built with cleristories for the Long Island Rail Road and the Interboro Rapid Transit in 1904, considerably before the Harimans.

[artpeterson]

Arched roofm steel-bodied rapid transit cars in Chicago date to the 1914 Cincinnati-built "baldie" 4000-series cars (4001-4250). These had rolled steel roofs, and so never got trolley poles. The later (1922-1924) Cincinnati cars (4251-4455) had arched roofs but wood with canvas covering with trolley poles on the typical wood boards at the crest of the roof.

North Shore's 1916 Brills were arched roof cars. CA&E would not get away from the clerestory design until the 1945 St. Louis-built 450-series cars, though they would start buying steel-bodied cars in 1923.

[littleboom]

Thanks for all the info guys!

[trolleyboy]

Your wooden Clerestry roofed cars both regular steam railway and electric interurban or streetcar type will have appeared in some cases as early as the late 1880's. Of coarse the steel units will have appeared after 1900 as has been stated by several others here.

Rob

[daveklepper]

What really is tough to explain is why cleristory roofs were almost universal on open bench summer streetcars, with certainly enough ventilation without any ventilation from the roof at all. Lower the side canvass curtains during rain? Hardly air tight and for all the good they did, except for brief showers, back to the carhouse with the opens and out with the closed cars.

[artpeterson]

Hi Dave -

I wonder if the deck roof or clerestory design was felt to offer more strength for the open car structure? Don't absolutely know, like you just speculating on why they stuck with these designs. Of course, how many open cars were built in what we've said was the arched roof "era" (post 1912 or so)?