Please help complete a C&O passenger train!

[VAPEURCHAPELON]

Hello all around.

I intend to run a steam era C&O passenger train. What I already have is:

2 Heavyweight paired window coaches

2 Streamlined 64 seat coaches

2 Streamlined 52 seat coaches

1 Streamlined 10-5 sleeper

All of these cars feature the beautyful blue-yellow silver/grey paint scheme, but I have been told that a mixed train with Heavy and Streamlined cars with ONLY that paint scheme was more than unlikely. So I wonder which cars would complete the train. It shall get no more than 11 cars total. Probably the next cars should be green, but what car types exactly would be appropriate, and would it be a good idea to include PULLMAN cars?

 

Thanks for your help and advices.

[twhite]

Vapeur--

You and I seem to be in the same boat building 'transitional' passenger trains.  Your C&O and my Rio Grande "Royal Gorge." 

If you're modeling in HO, I might suggest a couple of Walther's heavyweight pullmans, but instead of getting the C&O models (which would come in the more modern colors), either get cars lettered for Pullman, or perhaps the unlettered Pullman Green versions and decal them for C&O.   I don't know which kind of observation cars C&O used, but Walthers has a pullman-standard 'platform' obs available, and will be coming out with an enclosed 'solarium' obs either this month or next month.  Oh, and you'll need a diner.  I'd go with the Walther's Pullman standard diner in C&O colors. 

I'd also get the Walther's standard baggage car in Pullman green (and decal it), because many of the 'transitional' passenger trains didn't get around to re-painting their head-end equipment until the very last.  And an express reefer or two probably wouldn't hurt.  For an eastern road, probably American Transit or Fruit Grower's Express.  Both Walthers and BLI offer them.  I've got both brands, and they're equally good. 

Hope this helps.

Tom  

[orsonroy]

Hello all around.

I intend to run a steam era C&O passenger train. What I already have is:

2 Heavyweight paired window coaches

2 Streamlined 64 seat coaches

2 Streamlined 52 seat coaches

1 Streamlined 10-5 sleeper

All of these cars feature the beautyful blue-yellow silver/grey paint scheme, but I have been told that a mixed train with Heavy and Streamlined cars with ONLY that paint scheme was more than unlikely. So I wonder which cars would complete the train. It shall get no more than 11 cars total. Probably the next cars should be green, but what car types exactly would be appropriate, and would it be a good idea to include PULLMAN cars?

 

Thanks for your help and advices.

I'm not an expert on the C&O's passenger operations, but I seem to remember that they bought their streamlined cars in 1947/1948, as one of the largest single orders for Pullman-Standard cars ever (some went to the NKP, which is how I know about it). By that time the C&O was dieselizing all of their passenger trains as fast as they could. So I doubt that a "steam era" C&O passenger train would have ANY streamlined cars.

The C&O started dieselizing quickly, so when you're talking "steam era" on the C&O, you're talking about no later than WWII. So your train should reflect this period, by being ALL heavyweights, and by leaning heavily on head end equipment (unless you're modeling one of the named trains).

Your best bet to properly replicate a C&O passenger train of the time would be to find an "Official Guide" for a year close to what you want to model. The OGs list all the equipment normally assigned to passenger trains for each road, so long as they carried passengers (the OG didn't list head end equipment, unless the train had RPO service). Armed with the data from the OG you can go back and trace which cars the C&O had in that year, and then find models that are at least close.

[C&O Fan]

If you could find a few pictures of the George Washington set you might get some ideas from that.

or some photos of "The Sportsman"

 

[VAPEURCHAPELON]

Many Thanks for all your answers, and yes - I've heard that C&O dieselized its passenger trains very quickly, but also that occasionally a steamer like a modern Pacific, or an L-2 or J-3 were used as a replacement for a defective diesel. So these occasions are the thing I want to model.

[coalminer3]

If you have not been there already, go to the C&O Historical Society's website and look through the picture archive.  IIRC, they also have links to modeling information.  As posters have suggested, the time period REALLY makes a difference in consists for their passenger trains.  For example, streamlined equipment was in blue and yellow, but so was some much older head end equipment.  HW Pullmans were in green.  If you model the original George Washington, go green with the train name on the letterboard.  B4 I forget, the C&OHS has a sales point on their website which features accurate equipment - there is a discount for society members.  Hope this helps and good luck.

work safe

P.S. sleepers in lw order were 10-6 "City" series and some 12 double bedroom cars

[fmilhaupt]

To give you an idea of when steam power would have regularly pulled the streamlined Pullman-Standard coaches on the C&O, the coaches arrived in 1950, while the EMD E8As that the C&O ordered to dieselize its passenger operations arrived between August 1951 and January 1952. Once the last of the E8s arrived, the mainline passenger trains were effectively dieselized.

One thing you haven't mentioned is head-end equipment, such as baggage/express cars and a Railway Post Office car. For a typical C&O mainline passenger train, you would have one or two heavyweight baggage cars and a heavyweight RPO or baggage/RPO.  Rivarossi used to make some heavyweight cars that were plausible for this, and in tri-color C&O paint, too.