ALL:
A photograph on page 38 of the "Trains" Chicago issue shows a PRR cabin car on the rear of a passenger car. Could that car have been a Pullman going to another yard? Why didn't the train crew ride in the passenger car?
Ed Burns
PRR had high-speed cabooses to serve as rider cars on its mail & express trains. They were even listed in the Passenger Equipment Register. Assuming that the passenger car in question is a deadhead, it may not have been going the entire route of the train.
PRR trains 70 and 71 (The Red Bird, though the name was dropped in the late 1950s) carried mail, a coach and a coach lounge along with the caboose from Chicago to Richmond where the train split for Columbus and Cincinnati (on days the South Wind (90/91) didn't run, the train also had a Louisville car as 70-090 and 091-71). Apparently the Cabin was required as part of work rules if mail and express made up more than a certain percentage of the train.
Did the PRR ever use N5C cabin cars on passenger trains?
PRR cabin cars assigned to passenger service carried numbers in the 5000 series (the one on pg. 38 of the Trains Chicago issue is 5004). Most if not all of the other N-5 types carried five or six digit numbers. As far as I can tell from online sources all of the Passenger service cabin cars were N-5, not N-5C. From the photo below the cabin car is marked "Assigned to Passenger Service // Railway Express Agency". Note the RSD12s pushing were boiler-equipped.
very interesting, never saw a train like that, or realized they'd need caboose if they were hauling a lot of mail or express.
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