I got 3 box cars made by InterMountain. Do you have any information about these prototypes? Thanks.
http://burlington.seesaa.net/
I can't say for certain if those cars are authentic, but the Dixie Flyer and Dixie Flagler were both Florida East Coast "named" passenger (and perhaps somewhat later, freight) trains.
Perhaps the C&EI had a passenger train or freight service which operated in conjunction with the FEC.
Wayne
While I like photos, have a look here...
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/cei_cars/cei_number/000001-000005.htm
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
C&EI was a tenant at Dearborn Station so it was a Chicago gateway for a number of named trains (and had a few of its own).
Chicago to Evansville. Other railroads got the train to the FEC. Those must have been important trains to the C&EI because they streamlined some steam locomotives to haul them. So it would not surprise me to learn they painted up some boxcars to promote the trains.
Dave Nelson
Those cars have been done by other companies and also in N scale and as far as I know they are correct, some even listing the cities like "Chicago to Evansville" where the C&EI passenger trains connected with the L&N to take them south to the FEC.
Ralph
Thanks for everyone. I was able to understand the meaning of lettering. It may be better to replace the trucks with Allied Full Cushion.
I collect freight cars with named train lettering. Please see here. Is there something missing?
Kuriu, KotaroKyoto JAPAN
That is a 40' boxcar, a 1937 AAR (Association of American Railroads) design.
The C&EI (Chicago and Eastern Illinois) was one of five owners of Dearborn Station in downtown Chicago. The C&EI ran from Chicago Illinois to points south in Illinois, St. Louis Missouri and Evansville Indiana. From Evansville Indiana, it connected to other roads to points south into Florida and other southeast destinations.
Rich
Alton Junction
Various railroads ran 'inland' trains to the booming Florida market via what amounted to alphabet routes; it's an interesting thing to study. Think of these as counterparts to the more celebrated East Coast Florida trains, and more famous streamliners to Florida points 'elsewhere' in the South. Some of these served alternative routes with population centers that, taken together, were enough 'additional' traffic source to make the route pay. If I remember correctly, the operating railroads 'staggered' scheduling of the various trains, at least some of which did not run 'daily', so that there would be daily 'name-train quality' service from Chicago to Florida, and perhaps to some of the 'key' cities there. In that regulated (and then surtaxed) age, there would likely be little or no 'price' difference whichever route a train used between endpoints.
As noted, C&EI was a logical 'common gateway' for a variety of these trains to allow them to get into Chicago on 'economically reasonable' terms. They had little reason to compete with long-distance anything, and their own share of the overall revenue would likely be relatively low, so 'pride' in running a variety of important name trains would be a logical thing for them to 'market' via their freight car billboard sides.
I should add that Dearborn Station not only was the terminus for passenger trains of 7 different railroads including the C&EI but also was the site of 13 large freight houses that handled LCL freight as well as serving as an interchange for the owner railroads. So, back in the day, those C&EI boxcars would be a common sight around Dearborn Station as well as sidings all along the C&EI routes.
BN7150 Thanks for everyone. I was able to understand the meaning of lettering. It may be better to replace the trucks with Allied Full Cushion.
Allied full cushion trucks were banned from interchange in 1955 (and railroads soured on them before that due to derailments). Depending on your era, this may call for more research as to what the C&EI did. There is by the way a C&EI Historical Society.
http://ceihs.org/
dknelsonAllied full cushion trucks were banned from interchange in 1955 (and railroads soured on them before that due to derailments).
The Allied Full Cushion trucks are an interesting story -- they would have likely been adopted on boxcars used for head-end freight on fast passenger or M&E trains in the postwar years (due to better riding characteristics than typical contemporary three-piece freight trucks but less cost than drop-equalizer trucks). A rather obvious financial 'incentive' would be the large number of these trucks built for use on now-less-needed troop sleepers in wartime (once troops had been shuttled home after V-J day...)
The problem was that the complex sideframe castings had a weak point that could develop propagating crack damage where inspection 'from outside' couldn't detect it. This led to catastrophic failure, which resulted in derailment but not for any reason associated with 'intact' truck geometry. Now, it would have been possible to go in and strengthen 'replacement' castings at the key points ... but in the meantime Chrysler and others had done important work on improving the riding characteristics of far cheaper (and, as it turned out, more robust) three-piece trucks to be better alternatives with far less mass and cost than the Full Cushion design, even without external damping.
Note that the 'ban in interchange' did not relate to the likely service these cars would have had on C&EI, as that ban would only concern unrestricted freight interchange, i.e. no guarantee that accepting car inspectors would know where and how to look for the dangerous cracking, or have the time and equipment to do so expeditiously. Meanwhile PRR banned these in express movement in 1955 after one of the derailments, which had the effect among other things of the NH having to swap out many sets of these for (as I recall reading) drop-equalizer trucks. (NH is also recognized for replacing some with Symington-Gould high-speed three-piece trucks a couple of years earlier).
So the potential 'window' of use for these trucks is limited by actual use, and also by less than a decade of potential unrestricted application -- certainly by anything involving high speed. I suspect that no railroad aware of the situation would keep running these trucks after lawyers became aware of it too... On the other hand, they certainly add visual interest!
Does anyone have a picture of a C&EI box actually equipped with these trucks -- probably, also with steam and communication lines for head-end service? EDIT: It turns out there are pictures, and the cars were in fact built for head-end service -- see below.
The C&EI Historical Society has a very active membership. If photos of C&EI box cars equipped with Allied Full Cushion trucks are out there, someone from C&EIHS can provide them.
The Car Builders' Cyclopedia 1946 edition that I bought eight years ago had an advertisement for the trucks. On the two-page spread, there were structural diagrams of a passenger car clasp type and a freight car single type (attached image). I was surprised at the unique mechanism, and found a patent information on the net. Thus, I wrote a blog article (in Japanese language). In my experience, the frames (reference number 8) to which the brake shoes are attached are dangerous without frequent inspection. Also, the single type especially is dangerous without regular maintenance.
Bear's attached article solves the whole thing neatly. There was ONE of each illustrated named car, plus two others touting the C&EI routes ("Chicago St. Louis Southwest" and "Chicago Evansville Southeast" as in the pictures) and they were all intended for front-end use on fast trains -- hence bright University of Illinois colors, steam lines as the decaled car end indicates, and the Allied Full Cushion trucks.