I have pictures of converted Troop Sleepers on the head end of at least two different SF passenger trains. Only problem is from the angle of the picture it is impossible to read the herald on the car to see which RR owned it. As far as I know the SF didn't have any converted troop sleepers. I know Rock Island had a fairly large number of converted troop sleepers and they showed up in SF consists from time to time, as did an occasional NYC car. Are there any other possibilities that I may have missed?
The Lackawanna had a few that were conveyed to EL in the merger. I know there were other companies that had converted troop cars, but I can't remember them offhand.
Dragoon 45Are there any other possibilities that I may have missed?
Here's a partial listing and photos of some converted troop sleepers. I see that Frisco had quite a few. It is quite possible that their cars could venture west. Quite a bit of the head-end equipment was run off-line as some loads, periodicals, bulk express, would have been time consuming to transfer to other cars. Some converted troop sleepers went into M-of-W service as the express business tapered off.
http://passcarphotos.info/Varnish/Troop_1.htm
Somewhere I came across a Trains or Classic Trains article on head-end equipment that may have had some information. I'll take a look for that as time permits.
I remember seeing a story about through express and storage mail handled by Santa Fe coming from New York City via NYC RR. This site seems to confirm that. (MYC being a typo in the first chart?)
http://santafe.gmbus.com/7-8FastMailExpress/7-8FastMailExpress.htm
The cars in your photo may be New York Central.
Any possibility of giving a link to the photo or can you post it?
Good Luck, Ed
While I can't say for certain, I'm guessing the cars were either B&O or NYC. Those two roads also had through sleepers that ran to the West coast on Santa Fe.
The list Ed posted does not include C&O, but I thought they had some of the cars. Am I mistaken? Did C&O get some from B&O when those two roads got married? Anybody know?
Thanks for the info about the photo location. In my recollections of the "pre Amtrak" passenger trains I've seen east of Chicago there were head end cars from quite a few "foreign roads" carried so you would be well justified to run some converted troop sleepers on your Santa Fe trains. Of course, the top-name streamliners carried very little head-end work other than first-class mail and passengers personal luggage.
Tom, I looked at a 1965 Equipment Register and found 14 cars listed that could be converted troop sleepers on the C&O.
355-358; 362-363; 365-371; 374-376 These had inside length of 50' 7" which would correspond to a troop sleeper. A much larger group went directly into M-of-W service.
Of course, a picture is worth...
http://www.railarchive.net/vintagediesel/co96.htm
Take care, Ed
The REA had some cars converted from troop sleepers. They went practically everywhere as the REA tended to do and would be good candidates as a choice if there's doubt about the roadname.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
http://www.atsfrr.com/Reviews/HO/Passenger/Walthers/TroopSleeper/Index.htm
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Dragoon 45 Are there any other possibilities that I may have missed?
Are there any other possibilities that I may have missed?
Burlington had 300 (out of 800 built new) converted troop kitchen express box cars in the series 8600-8899. I would think these would be top of the list of possibilities. While the herald and markings may not show, the sides of the kitchens and sleepers had a different window pattern. This may tell you which of these two the subject car was built from.
REA had 200 express reefers converted from troop sleepers, REX 6600-6799. Aside from the window pattern, the ice hatches might show.
Besides the pattern of the side and the existence of ice hatches, the doors on the various conversions were, well, varied. Thus providing more info.
If yer guessing, throw in a Burlington car.
Ed
ndbprr:
Sorry, but I have to jump in here with a different perspective. I don't want to be too judgmental or harsh, but I can't agree. I'm not 71. I'm 70, and have been reading MR since I was about 10. In my teens I bought back issues in the vain hope that I would complete the collection, and I read 'em all. Now when somebody posts something that jolts my memory, I hope I can remember where I read something relevant. Sometimes I do; sometimes not.
I think everybody on the MR staff is younger than I am by quite a few years, with the exception of Tony Koester and maybe one or two others. Tony is a columnist & editor of MRP, but he isn't an MR magazine staffer. A couple magazine staffers peruse the forums (fora?) looking for various things. Above all, they want to weed out objectionable content and resolve issues relating to the practical use of the forums. It would be nice if they could immediately respond to all the various queries by taking the time to do the research and find all the answers. But I don't think that's their function, and there wouldn't be enough hours in the day if it were.
This is called a forum. It's supposed to be an exchange of ideas between forum members. It's not supposed to be a question-and-answer session between the moderators and the rest of us. Sometimes we need to do a bit of the digging. You mentioned a past MR article. Frankly, I didn't remember it, so I thank you for that. Now maybe one of the forum members will have a few spare hours to dig for the referenced information. Meanwhile, somebody else might find a similar reference in some book, or in RMC, Mainline Modeler, a RR historical group magazine, or one of the other model railroad publications (I have never really thought of them as competitors --- more like complements to one another). With everybody working together in respectful and harmonious dialogue, we can often find pretty good answers.
I really enjoy research as a part of the hobby, and wouldn't like it too much if the MR staffers did all that for me and deprived me of the fun of discovery, and I like the idea that forum members can take credit for good, reliable research, and don't have to depend on staffers to spoon-feed it to us.
That's the way I see it. Of course you are entitled to a different opinion. That's the way these things work.
Tom
ACYI really enjoy research as a part of the hobby, and wouldn't like it too much if the MR staffers did all that for me and deprived me of the fun of discovery, and I like the idea that forum members can take credit for good, reliable research, and don't have to depend on staffers to spoon-feed it to us.
A neat list!
A smallish correction:
The REX series 6800-6879 should be 6800-6874.
Ed, From the pictures I have, all of them show troop sleepers converted to express box cars, no ice hatches are visible. Regarding the CB&Q, I thought all their Western Connections were through the DRG&W? Not saying a CB&Q express car never made it to the head end of an SF consist, just have never seen any pictures confirming it.
I have no doubt some of the REA converted Express Reefers made it into SF consists. But the conversion to an REA car from a troop sleeper may be a lot harder to do.
Some of those troop sleepers kept their original side doors (4' or 6'?) and some railroads (like the NYC) rebuilt them with typical (8'?) boxcar doors. This might help in identifying them (or at least narrowing down the search) in photos when the lighting isn't perfect or if the cars were very dirty.
While researching the C&O passenger trains I've seen head end cars from Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe, C&O, B&O, and probably a few others on Michigan trains. The Santa Fe car (if I remember correctly) was a pullman green color with "SANTA FE" (in imitation gold?) above the side door...no Santa Fe herald (that was probably an REA car?).
It's hard to find good photos of head end cars, check youtube (to see if anyone has uploaded home movies of trains in your area) and don't forget about books by publishers such as Morning Sun...I refer to mine all the time.
Historical societies are very good research sources too, some don't charge anything to search through their archives.
http://delray1967.shutterfly.com/pictures/5
SEMI Free-Mo@groups.io
Dragoon 45 Regarding the CB&Q, I thought all their Western Connections were through the DRG&W? Not saying a CB&Q express car never made it to the head end of an SF consist, just have never seen any pictures confirming it.
Regarding the CB&Q, I thought all their Western Connections were through the DRG&W? Not saying a CB&Q express car never made it to the head end of an SF consist, just have never seen any pictures confirming it.
From the SFRH&MS site:
"The CB&Q version is documented on the Santa Fe #3 & #7..."
Ed, I stand corrected. Thank you.