Those who have both time and less flakey internet connections can do the investigation and report!
daveklepper Here is the Chile picture. No center door. Probzbly ex-Erie:
Here is the Chile picture. No center door. Probzbly ex-Erie:
Whatever's happening there must be very important, that's the Chilean presidential flag, and I'd have to assume the speaker's the man himself.
I just checked, it is. Sebastian Pinera.
You think he's a railfan?
According to Steve Sattler, who sent it to me, it is a picture of a recent new station dedication. Note the flag.
I'm quite sure it is one of the Erie's intercity Stillwells, not a suburban Stillwell, because of the glass in the transoms of the windows.
I rode a car like this on a camp special age 14. But began taking railfan pictures after that summer.
Perhaps the car in Peru also went first to Chile?
Is the one in Chile in use or is it in a museum?
Thanks David!
Sure looks like a Stillwell to me!
Does not one of the source books mentioned reveal the thinking behind the NYNH&H's construction of a competitor? I had understood it was to get the NYCentral to reduce charges the NYNH&H considered excessive for their use of GCT.
I do believe that if the NYW&B had been built tor IRT-compatible equipment, a design like the Hudson and Manhattan Stillwells, which were tested on the 2nd Avenue Elevated before the opening of the "McAdoo Tubes," the line would have been as the then successful as the model North Shore. The Willis Avenue shuttle track woiuld have seen through operation, with NYW&B trains using the spare capacity of the 2nd Avenue Elevated, express track in the direction of heavy travel, to reach downtown Manhattan and City Hall - Park Row, with a one-seat ride. It migiht have outlasted the Putnam passenger service and be an MTA subsidized operation today or at least lasted through WWII.
Flintlock- In one of your links about the NYW&B, it mentions one Robert Bang who wrote a book about the railway. I met him at a train show in Hartford and he signed the book I bought from him. My job as a boiler inspector took me to the areas where the railway served and I would see the occasional bridge abutment, station building and so forth. But I didn't see any trace of the right of way.
It seemed to me to be doomed to failure as it started way up in the Bronx and the only way they could build ridership would be to put the fares as low as possible to compete with the New Haven who already served the various towns. Hardly a recipe for success I think. And to go to New Rochelle would have taken a lot longer than 45 minutes from Broadway!
You're welcome Sam!
You know, there's an issue of "Railfan and Railroad" I wish I'd kept, it had a great article about the NYW&B written by a guy who grew up in the area. Actually pretty funny, as a young railfan he said one of the things he liked to do was bring up the NYW&B at family gatherings (long after abandonment, mind you) just to listen to his older male relatives like his father, grandfather, and uncles explode with rage over the line being ripped up and gone. They loved that 'road!
He said it was very entertaining!
The name 'Stillwell passenger car' was one I had not heard before. I Knew Arthur E. Stillwell from his building of the KansasCity Pittsbutg&Gulf RR (nee: KCSRR). Nio identifiable relation between them(?).
Turns out Lewis B. Stillwell was an Electrical Engineer by profession and later a railroad consultant . He started out with the Niagra Power Company and left to consult for the Erie RR. and before that with the NYW&B RR. More on him and the NTW&B: linked here @
http://www.20thcenturyhobbies.com/trainnut/ModelingEL/Modeling1.html
[Kinda a model kit site, but some pretty good info on the Stillwell Cars& RRs]
As for Arthur E Stillwell, I knew some about his railroad venture from my days in Pittsburg, Ks. [Div. Point on KCS RR]. He was noted as an entrepreneur, having started some 41 busuinesses, built some 2,000 miles of railroads[ 3 railroads-K.C . Suburban RR/now KC Terminal RR, The KCS RR, and started the K.C. Mexico and Orient RR] more info on A.E,Stillwell, here @ https://www.pullman-museum.org/theCompany/stillwell.html
For a really, deep dive into Mr. A.E,Stillwell; see link here @ https://shsmo.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/kansas-city/kimball/Rowland-10-27-2003.pdf
My thanks, to Wayne (Flintlock76) and to Dave Klepper for an interesting look into some railroad history!
Here's the story of the NYW&B Stillwells, and other equipment. According to this archive one of the cars went to Peru.
http://www.nywbry.com/roster
Here's the whole archive site. Interesting!
http://www.nywbry.com
Found some surviving Erie Stillwells too! It's too damn hot to go out. might as well be productive!
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29462
I thought the NYW & B cars went to California to move shipyard workers during the war. In Sacramento, I think.
I know I've said it before, but it's too bad the NYW&B didn't survive until World War Two. Considering the gas and tire rationing of the war years it would have been worth it's weight in gold as a commuter line. But who knew? Urban planners and officials have a lot of tools to work with but a crystal ball isn't one of them.
The NYW&B cars had center doors, unlike the Erie's and the London and Port Standley cars. They went to Boston (de-motored) to replace the last wood New Haven Boston commuter cars. and then were replaced around 1949 by six-wheel air-conditioned reseated ex-parlor cars that had been replaced by the postwar lightweights similar to the postwar coaches, diners, and combines.
I've asked Steve to resend the picture. If the cars have center doors, then you are probably right, and they are NYW&B cars.
Definitely not the smaller H&M cars or the more normal size distinctive BMT steels.
In Boston commuter service the center door was not used, and there were adjacent seats.
Anything's possible. To my knowledge there's one, maybe two ex-Erie Stillwells here in the US that survived by a sheer fluke.
The New York, Westchester & Boston interurban line that was abandoned in 1937 also used Stillwell coaches. Maybe that's where the Chilean Stillwells came from?
Stave Sattler sent me a photo of a station opening in Chile with what appeared to be Stillwells, possible ex-Erie, painted CP red, in the background. Does any reader know the facts on this? The photo seems to have disappeared from my mailbox before I could post it via Imgur.
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