Hey -- A friend has a beautiful 20th Century Limited, and it includes a Santa Fe car that he said would have been a through car (I assume NY straight to LA or vice-versa). I have seen other foreign road cars on videos of NYC trains.
I was curious to learn more about this practice. How common was it, and who pariticipated? I am working on building out a NYC heavyweight train and want to add a "foreign" car -- but whose? Did certain railroads have agreements? Could I put a UP or SP or SF car in my NYC train?
Thanks!
Aaron
The Pennsylvania had a fair number of passenger cars painted in the colors of other railroads but lettered PRR (so at first glance they look like foreign road cars) for through car service. I can't speak to the Central but I'd be pretty surprised if they did not do the same. I wonder if this or that Morning Sun color book would have examples.
Are you a member of the NY Central Historical Society? This is what such societies exist to do: help their members with "deep research" questions such as this.
Dave Nelson
Hi, Aaron
The Transcontinental Pullman service was mostly a "PostWar" effort and never really gained much of a hold on the travelling public. It was more like a ten-year experiment.
Therefore you wouldn't see heavyweight equipment although it was common for some Pullman cars to "run-through" if that car was chartered to a group, say for a Shriners convention or the Army-Navy game near Philadelphia. It was relatively easy in those days for even a small group to charter a car. Pullman had several "private cars" that could be hired on a regular basis.
Through service as you are asking avout began in March of 1946 and commonly paired the Broadway and the Century carrying Santa Fe cars off the Chief, and later the Super Chief. New York and Los Angles service had the most "routes" with six available. Usually only one car but sometimes two 4-4-2s were the norm. Later Union Pacific cars were also carried off the C&NW/UP/SP Overland Route.
Other service was carried on for a few years with the NYC's Iriquois and The Fifth Avenue and the Pennsy's Golden Arrow and Manhattan Limited carring cars from both the Los Angles Limited and The Overland.
Some service was only offered on alternate days such as with the California Zephyr(after 1949) and San Francisco Overland carrying cars off the NYC's Lake Shore Limited and the PRR's Admiral and Pennsylvania Limited.
The Rock Island/ Southern Pacific Golden State also traded cars with NYC and PRR on alternate days. The PRR also teamed up with Missouri Pacific and Texas Pacific for the Texas Eagle/Penn Texas which carried through Washington/New York Pullmans to several points in Texas.
The B&O's Capitol Limited carried Washington D.C. Pullmans off the Chief from L.A. and The San francisco Overland on alternate days. The Southern Crescent carried a Pullman which connected with S. P.'s Sunset Limited.
By 1957 almost all transcontinental through car service was discontinued. Transfering the cars in Chicago became a costly operation and there was still a five or more hour layover there for the traveler.
A handful of Pullman cars were painted and lettered to match the counterpart trains but that practice wasn't carried out to a great degree.
Generally the operating agreements were with the Pullman Company which essentially "contracted" the carrying railroad for transportation.
Hope that helps,
Regards, Ed
The Lackawanna carried a through Nickel Plate sleeper for through service to Chicago from Hoboken
I'm not sure how common it would have been in the heavyweight era--as pointed out above, it was mostly a postwar phenomenon. For instance, the Frisco operated PRR and B&O cars on both The Texas Special and The Meteor:
https://thelibrary.org/lochist/frisco/allaboard/Optimized/1991_12-1_v6_4_08.pdf
There's a photo of The Black Gold (Tulsa to Dallas) with both PRR and B&O cars in the consist, but I can't find it...
Gary
Ed gives a pretty good rundown of the types of service offered. Another little-known run-through arrangement was the PRR's through service to Memphis, Louisville, and Nashville via L&N. Three 10-6 sleepers were built for L&N by Pullman Standard to plan 4140 in October, 1949, and named Green River, Barren River, and Kentucky River. They were painted PRR Tuscan, and resembled PRR 4140's except that they had the L&N road name above the windows. The cars operated on the PRR's Cincinnati Limited from New York to Cincinnati, and were then forwarded to L&N destinations on L&N trains. Since more than three cars were required to cover the service daily in both directions, matching PRR 10-6's in the Plan 4140 "... Rapids" series were used to supplement them.
I have often wondered why Walthers never offered their 4140 car in that Tuscan L&N scheme. Maybe they didn't think modelers would believe it was accurate.
Tom
Great information, thank you everyone!