For my birthday, I got a book by the Santa Fe Historical and Modeling Society detailing all sleepers that were used by the Santa Fe; Both heavyweights and steamlined.
One section stuck out, and that was the "Foreign Roads' Sleepers," which detailed a lot of the Tour Trains hosted on Santa Fe tracks through the 50's.
Seeing as I'm currently accumulating a lot of cars, under the C&O, B&O, and SF banners, with many other random roads getting kicked up if I can snag a good deal on the car, I want to slap together one of the trains. Sorta like a side project to distract me from the combined C&O/B&O train.
One problem; I don't know diddly squat about these trains.
So, what cars typically ran with this train? I'd assume most of them would be thru-way cars picked up in Chicago, then carried to their destination by a special movement.
Also, are the cars only from either Santa Fe or eastern railroads? I have a few SP and DRGW that I probably won't have a use for, so I want to have something to use them on.
JetClipper, I know nothing about the Santa Fe tour trains but there are a couple of other scenarios you may want to consider that would allow you to have both heayweight as well as lightweight sleepers from any road you wish. First would be the Boy Scout Jamboree, where the Scouts would charter cars from all over the country to take the kids to the gathering, where ever it may be held in the country. Their first point of contact would be their local railroad, if it still ran passenger service. If it didn't, they found the nearest road that did haul people and, the request was made to charter a car or, cars. If the local road had no sleepers, they could be Pullman pool cars, or cars from any road that had idle cars. This could mean Katy's Texas Special cars in New England, and New Haven, New York Central or Pennsy cars in any corner of the country. The same holds true of troop movements on a large scale. The easy way to move a large number of people during the era of the "Pullman" sleeper was by chartered cars which were drawn from any road that had them available, regardless of paint scheme or reporting marks. A number of sports teams used to travel by rail, using chartered cars. During the winter months, a lot of cold country paint schemes would wind up in Florida. There are many ways to justify off-line cars in your passenger trains, so run what you like because at one time or another, the prototype did. That's why they call it "standard gauge".
Sounds like these trains were a mixture of all type of cars as needed for various events and circumstances. In that case, make up your own event and put whatever cars you have into the consist. Only you would know.
Paul D
N scale Washita and Santa Fe RailroadSouthern Oklahoma circa late 70's
Just another thought on justifying passenger equipment from distant railroads in your trains. If you are modeling C&O, these special event cars or trains could be bound for the Greenbrier Resort which, I believe is in White Sulphur Springs WV. The Greenbrier was served by the C&O and hosted all sorts of conventions etc. Modeling the resort would not be necessary as the trains might be traversing your portion of the C&O to and from it. If you decide to model a resort, a yard to store and service the cars would give you a place to display your models and opens up the entire catalog, to include Canada and Mexico. Yes. Nacionale de Mexico sleepers used to operate into St. Louis over the Missouri Pacific and cars from Canada entered the U.S. at a number of points. Try to acquire a copy of "The Official Guide of the Railways" for the time period you are modeling. It will give you many ideas and much guidance in pursuing and achieving your modeling goals. Enjoy.