The car we're talking about isn't an RPO. There were cars that were part baggage and part RPO, even ones that were "triple combines" - baggage / RPO / passenger seating. This car is essentially a baggage car built for mail storage, with a small passenger section. The small rider section on the rear allowed the railroad to not have to use say an entire coach just for the benefit of the crew and an area for RPO clerks to have a break.
Plus, the RPO section would have windows.
p.s. AHM was formed to import Rivarossi cars from Italy. Later, Rivarossi cars were sold here under their own name. AHM cars had blue/yellow boxes with clear cellophane, the Rivarossi cars came in a maroon closed box. It's quite possible IHC at some point had some cars built by Rivarossi, but in my experience with both the IHC cars are not the same as the AHM / Rivarossi cars.
well since the original question was about a PRR car about 25 years ago there was an entire issue of the PRR historical society magazine the Keystone all about PRR rpo's. It should still be available from the society web site
I don't think anyone said it was an RPO? As you say, an RPO section would have windows. It was an end-of-train rider car, with most of it dedicated to sacked mail (which could be worked from an RPO farther up in the train.)
OK, that conversation was all over the place.
The Rivarossi combine is very close to one that the C&O had, and from what I understand they only had one.
Other roads may have had ones like that with the short coach section, have not found any others yet.
Unlikely a car like that had a mail sorting section, even the 15' RPO plan had windows.
RPO standard plans included a 15', 30' and two different 60' configurations. Virtually all full RPO cars were 60'.
RPO baggage combines were often 70' or 75' with a 30' RPO section. In some of these cars the baggage area was used as dedicated mail storage, in others the baggage side was used as a baggage car.
But is possible that some railroad used a combine like this as a dedicated mail storage car, and/or a rider car for railroad and RPO employees, so the lettering may have some historic basis.
Sheldon
The thread drifted from the specific RPO car I obtained on ebay to a discussion of whether the IHC passenger cars were made by Rivarossi. Based on the lengthy post from a different forum that I cited earlier, it appears the SOME IHC cars were made on contract by Rivarossi using some of their generic models. My statement that there was no question that my IHC RPO was made by Rivarossi was referring to a different RPO I purchased on ebay several years ago, not the one I spoke about in the original post in this thread. That one is indeed a combine that apparently was mislettered as an RPO by Rivarossi. It is their generic combine which I believe was based on a Santa Fe prototype. It was shipped in a very old AHM box that I believe is from the 1970s or earlier. It wasn't the original box because it is labeled for an observation car which this one clearly is not. Except for my high end locos, I'm not a saver of boxes so this was not an issue for me. As I do with most of my rolling stock, I put the car on the layout and the box in the trash. I don't anticipate selling this so I'm not concerned about resale value.
I am wondering if the combine could have served as an RPO. I say this because years ago I read that the USPS leased cars in 15 foot increments meaning it didn't always lease the whole car. Is it possible that the mid-section of the combine could have been used for mail sorting? Obviously, it would have to be locked from the short passenger section if that were the case.
John-NYBW I found this rather lengthy and thorough explanation regarding IHC and Rivarossi passenger cars on another forum. See the reply by the fellow named Andy. Rivarossi & IHC passenger cars | ModelRailroadForums.com The answer seems to be that some IHC cars were made by Rivarossi and some were not. There is no doubt in my mind that my IHC RPO was one that is a Rivarossi car.
I found this rather lengthy and thorough explanation regarding IHC and Rivarossi passenger cars on another forum. See the reply by the fellow named Andy.
Rivarossi & IHC passenger cars | ModelRailroadForums.com
The answer seems to be that some IHC cars were made by Rivarossi and some were not. There is no doubt in my mind that my IHC RPO was one that is a Rivarossi car.
But the car in question is not an "RPO", it is a mail storage car wih a "rider" section. It other words it is a special purpose combine.
It did not have a mail sorting section.
AHM/Rivarossi/who ever else used or copied the tooling only lettered it as post office car for some roads, likely because they had prototype info or knowledge of that road using this type of car in that way.
But for other road names they simply lettered it as a combine.
And I can tell you that the end of the correct box called it a combine, not an RPO.
https://hoseeker.net/ahminformation/ahmcatalog1973pg28.jpg
Yes, all the cars on the page linked above where made by Rivarossi and first marketed in the U.S. by AHM.
I bought seven or eight of the IHC cars in the 1990s and found them fairly disappointing. I ended up shelving them and using AHM/Rivarossi cars instead. From my experience with them, I will stick with saying the IHC cars are similar to the AHM/Riv cars, but not the same by any means.
IC_Tom John-NYBW wjstix What I was told (by a Santa Fe modeller) was the AHM/Rivarossi car you're talking about was built for ATSF to use on mail trains. Unlike most combines, it was meant to be at the end of the train, not up front. Mail / Express trains often used a coach at the end of the train (which was made up of RPOs, mail storage baggage cars, express reefers and boxcars, etc.). Santa Fe didn't want to carry a full coach or regular combine at the end, they had this car built so the crew had a place to ride on the rear, but most of the car could be carrying sacked mail. BTW IHC cars are kinda similar to the AHM/Rivarossi cars, but they aren't the same. I believe I had this conversation a year or so ago. The IHC might not have come from the same molds as those sold under the Rivarossi name, but they are virtually the same car. I compared my Rivarossi RPO with my IHC RPO. They were identical with two exceptions. The windows on the IHC car were louvred and the Rivarossi trademark was missing on the bottom of the IHC car. All the other moldings were the same. I had already converted the couplers on both before the comparison and had put metal wheels on both, but I saw no difference in the trucks. There is no doubt in my mind that IHC simply obtained duplicate molds from Rivarossi and made minor tweaks to them. It is inconceivable that the two cars could have been produced from independent sources and turned out to be identical in almost every detail. When it comes to smooth-side passenger sets, there's a big difference between AHM/Rivarossi and IHC. AFAIK, Rivarossi smooth-side passenger cars do not include a Combine and the IHC RPO and Baggage cars are 85-footers, whereas the Rivarossi RPO and Baggage are 72-footers (or somewhere close to that).
John-NYBW wjstix What I was told (by a Santa Fe modeller) was the AHM/Rivarossi car you're talking about was built for ATSF to use on mail trains. Unlike most combines, it was meant to be at the end of the train, not up front. Mail / Express trains often used a coach at the end of the train (which was made up of RPOs, mail storage baggage cars, express reefers and boxcars, etc.). Santa Fe didn't want to carry a full coach or regular combine at the end, they had this car built so the crew had a place to ride on the rear, but most of the car could be carrying sacked mail. BTW IHC cars are kinda similar to the AHM/Rivarossi cars, but they aren't the same. I believe I had this conversation a year or so ago. The IHC might not have come from the same molds as those sold under the Rivarossi name, but they are virtually the same car. I compared my Rivarossi RPO with my IHC RPO. They were identical with two exceptions. The windows on the IHC car were louvred and the Rivarossi trademark was missing on the bottom of the IHC car. All the other moldings were the same. I had already converted the couplers on both before the comparison and had put metal wheels on both, but I saw no difference in the trucks. There is no doubt in my mind that IHC simply obtained duplicate molds from Rivarossi and made minor tweaks to them. It is inconceivable that the two cars could have been produced from independent sources and turned out to be identical in almost every detail.
wjstix What I was told (by a Santa Fe modeller) was the AHM/Rivarossi car you're talking about was built for ATSF to use on mail trains. Unlike most combines, it was meant to be at the end of the train, not up front. Mail / Express trains often used a coach at the end of the train (which was made up of RPOs, mail storage baggage cars, express reefers and boxcars, etc.). Santa Fe didn't want to carry a full coach or regular combine at the end, they had this car built so the crew had a place to ride on the rear, but most of the car could be carrying sacked mail. BTW IHC cars are kinda similar to the AHM/Rivarossi cars, but they aren't the same.
What I was told (by a Santa Fe modeller) was the AHM/Rivarossi car you're talking about was built for ATSF to use on mail trains. Unlike most combines, it was meant to be at the end of the train, not up front. Mail / Express trains often used a coach at the end of the train (which was made up of RPOs, mail storage baggage cars, express reefers and boxcars, etc.). Santa Fe didn't want to carry a full coach or regular combine at the end, they had this car built so the crew had a place to ride on the rear, but most of the car could be carrying sacked mail.
BTW IHC cars are kinda similar to the AHM/Rivarossi cars, but they aren't the same.
I believe I had this conversation a year or so ago. The IHC might not have come from the same molds as those sold under the Rivarossi name, but they are virtually the same car. I compared my Rivarossi RPO with my IHC RPO. They were identical with two exceptions. The windows on the IHC car were louvred and the Rivarossi trademark was missing on the bottom of the IHC car. All the other moldings were the same. I had already converted the couplers on both before the comparison and had put metal wheels on both, but I saw no difference in the trucks. There is no doubt in my mind that IHC simply obtained duplicate molds from Rivarossi and made minor tweaks to them. It is inconceivable that the two cars could have been produced from independent sources and turned out to be identical in almost every detail.
When it comes to smooth-side passenger sets, there's a big difference between AHM/Rivarossi and IHC. AFAIK, Rivarossi smooth-side passenger cars do not include a Combine and the IHC RPO and Baggage cars are 85-footers, whereas the Rivarossi RPO and Baggage are 72-footers (or somewhere close to that).
Having never owned an IHC smoothside passenger car, I can believe they are from a different lineage than the Rivarossi smoothside cars. Not so with the IHC heavyweights, at least the RPO. It is identical to the Rivarossi RPO with the exception of two minor details. I believe somewhere in my collection, I have an IHC heavyweight coach and as I remember, it was no different than the Rivarossi coach.
On the "standard" AHM/Rivarossi passenger cars, many (but not all) of them were Santa Fe prototypes. The tip off is a slightly inset bottom sill running the length of the bottom of the car side. That ebay photo is a little grainy but it looks to me like the inset bottom side sill is present. I seem to recall that the body of that car might also replicate where prior windows had been plated over to make it a combine, or perhaps I am thinking of a different car.
The semi streamlined RPO that AHM/Rivarossi offered -- with the rounded roof -- is indeed a reasonably accurate model of a Pennsylvania Railroad prototype. It has that characteristic molding on the car side that was meant to absorb the impact of the RPO "arm" slamming into it when bags of mail were picked up on the fly.
And yes the IHC cars typically resembled but were not the same tooling as their AHM/Rivarossi equivalents.
Dave Nelson
ATLANTIC CENTRAL John, is this a heavyweight car, vestibule at one end, baggage door at the other end, 3/4 windows at the vestibule end? If so it is the coach/baggage combine they offered and I do believe I remember some of them having RPO lettering because they where used as mail storage cars. A picture would help. For the record, these cars were NOT patterned after ONE SPECIFIC railroad, each car does have a prototype, selected from numerous different roads and prototype builders. Then of course just lettered in every popular roadname. Sheldon
John, is this a heavyweight car, vestibule at one end, baggage door at the other end, 3/4 windows at the vestibule end?
If so it is the coach/baggage combine they offered and I do believe I remember some of them having RPO lettering because they where used as mail storage cars.
A picture would help.
For the record, these cars were NOT patterned after ONE SPECIFIC railroad, each car does have a prototype, selected from numerous different roads and prototype builders.
Then of course just lettered in every popular roadname.
Here's the ebay page.
AHM Rivarossi HO Scale PRR Pennsylvania Limited Lighted RPO Passenger Car | eBay
This looks similar to a UP coach/baggage combine I used to have but I sold all my UP passenger cars when I began my current eastern themed railroad so I can't compare them to see if it is identical. I believe that one was based on a Sante Fe prototype.
The Rivarossi cars were the first full length cars in HO. I bought my first cars 60 years ago so my memory is a little fuzzy. As I recall some or most were based on ATSF cars. the PRR car is not representative of a PRR car just painted as such. If you can find MR magazines from the era they did review them as they were introduced.
Over the past decades I have acquired numerous Rivarossi passenger cars sold under their brand name as well as AHM and IHC. I know their offerings have been generic and not railroad specific. I have several RPOs, all configured the same way. I recently acquired through ebay a Rivarossi Pennsy RPO that is different from all other Rivarossi RPOs I own. This one is a combine with a small passenger section. It came to me in a very old AHM box but the label indicated it was an observation car so I'm guessing this was not the box the RPO was originally sold in. I'm also guessing the box is from the 1970s or earlier. Does anyone know if Rivarossi had a different configuration for their RPOs back then or earlier? The lettering on the car clearly indicates it is an RPO and it also indicates it was for the New York-Chicago Pennsylvania Limited. Did Rivarossi at one time sell road specific versions of their passenger cars?
Just curious.