The other order that got ahead of the High-Level cars was CPR's huge Canadian/Dominion order. Hardly Mickey Mouse.
Common you Californians, one of you must know the answer!
RMEThank heaven someone who asks good questions is up now!
Actually, that was a head-scratcher. All I remembered was seeing pictures of containers in the late 1960s. I wasn't aware of the cut-down heavyweights.
So... Let's stick with Santa Fe's passenger trains. The inaugural of the all High-Level El Capitan was timed to (unofficially) coincide with what event in California? The timing didn't work out, since AT&SF got their order into Budd after NP, GN and PRR, so the train inauguration was over a year late.
rcdryeThe San Francisco Chief carried storage mail on cut down heavyweight cars modified to take four containers for about three years in the early 1960s. The cars were initially replaced in 1966 or 1967 with more ordinary flat cars that could carry four containers each. The whole deal ended with the loss of the mail contract in 1968.
Right, right, and right, of course
Here's a picture that shows the arrangement (with 8000hp on the point, too!)
Thank heaven someone who asks good questions is up now!
The San Francisco Chief carried storage mail on cut down heavyweight cars modified to take four containers for about three years in the early 1960s. The cars were initially replaced in 1966 or 1967 with more ordinary flat cars that could carry four containers each. The whole deal ended with the loss of the mail contract in 1968.
In the early 1960s, a famous Santa Fe passenger train started running modified heavyweight cars in its consist. What was this equipment used for, and when and why was it stopped?
RME has been stuck for a good question since before Thanksgiving. Still working on it.
RME is up.
and Reading Pacifics were the last steamers to see PRR's 30th Street Station, since had replaced most of the older PRR power before scrapping the Reading power. I think I saw a REading Pacific at the north end of the lower level of 30th on an Atlantic City train in 1958. I'll give to RME on the basis of Eagleson's book.
Even though I rode behind Nelson Blount's at Steamtown,
If it helps the situation any, I consulted Eagleson's "Steam on the Anthracite Roads" in the local hobby shop this morning, and he said (without attribution or source) that the G3s were 'last Pacifics built in the Americas'. Use of the plural indicated to me that he knew about the Canadian locomotives. But it is not sure proof.
I will defer to RME..I'm away at a conference starting tomorrow.
Both CP's and Readings Pacifics had very short lives ( most of them) ...interesting how rapidly things changed in a span of 6-10 years. A huge capital investment essentially wasted and the reason for them being built in the first place disappeared with the demise of passenger service, especially on locals and branch lines. The original planners must have been astonished. I'm still astonished! ( let alone T1's, Q2's, and Niagara's ...huge capital down the drain and such a promising future)
......enter stage left, GM conspiracy theory
I believe the Reading's were later, but probably only by a week or two for the very last. I'll leave i up to both of you to figure out who is correct on this, because rearch on this is not easy here. I had forgottrn about the CP's and am happy to be reminded. Thanks.
The 'other' contender (I don't have time to check the dates) would be the last Reading class, G3 (210-219, I think) -- they built most of them in their own shops, iirc, getting the cast steel bed and some other components from the usual places) which would have run on trains like the Queen of the Valley/Harrisburg Special (probably replaced by the FP7s?) and on PRSL (replaced by AS16s?). All gone within a decade; one offered for display and turned down by the city because not modern enough!
CP G5as also operated in pool service with B&M engines between Montreal and White River Jct VT, with occasional staying to Boston. CP bought 3 US-built E8s to replace them, running them in a pool with B&M E7s (and one E8) until at least 1954.
Canadian Pacific Class G5d were built in 1948..they must have been close to the last built. MLW and CLC built 105 of G5 class after the war. They were used system wide, a lot in the Prairie Provinces for local and branch line service. They were replaced by Alco FA's equipprd for passenger service and EMD F7's and 9's. Many of thses locals and branch line runs were discontinued and not replaced by anything. Several were only 7-8 years old when retired out of service. 2 were purchased by Nelson Blount and run at Steamtown for years and still in use. Many more have been preserved.
Rode it to and from Amarillo 1967. Who built the last North American passenger Pacific and for whom and where did it run and what diesels replaced it and when? (Hint: after WWII!)
All of the cars went to the SF Chief as they were completed. The Chief got the Big Domes originally intended for the El Capitan. The cars had 4 drawing rooms and one double bedroom forward of the lounge area.
Either the same train (Chief) as midtrain lounges or to the Sn Francisco Chief.
The Santa Fe Chief's six observation cars were remodeled (to square end) by Pullman's Richmond CA shops and reassigned in 1954 to what train?
Looking forsard to rc's question.
Thanks, Dave.
Johnny
Deggesty Please check your history of the SAL's silver fleet. The Silver Comet was inaugurated in 1947, several years after the Southern began running the Southerner.
Please check your history of the SAL's silver fleet. The Silver Comet was inaugurated in 1947, several years after the Southern began running the Southerner.
Silver Comet Streaks Through Sleeping Town
The Silver Comet, the Seaboard Air Line's new all stainless steel diesel streamliner, streaked through Southern Pines at midnight Sunday, and got about as little attention from the town as it gave. Nobody turned out to see the latest creation of the railroad car manufacturers, probably because the hour was late and also because the streamlined trains, once a 10 days' wonder, are getting to be taken somewhat for granted, like other miracles of modern science.
Yet the Silver Comet is said to be something very special. It is the first of three new streamliners designed to give fast, one-night-out service between New York and other northern metropolitan centers and the cities on the Seaboard route as far south as Birmingham.
It got a real send-off Sunday at 12:45 p.m. in New York, with Jean Parker, beauty of stage and screen (currently in ''Burlesque" on Broadway) presiding over christening ceremonies, and the public invited to inspect the train before and after the ceremony. Executives of the Seaboard and other eastern railroads attended the ceremony and a luncheon which followed.
Due at Southern Pines at 11:53 p.m., the Silver Comet was seven minutes late, but that inconvenienced nobody, for nobody was getting on. The Silver Comet, in fact, doesn't stop here going or coming (its scheduled return trips are at 3:20 a.m.) The only way it will affect passengers from Southern Pines is that they can get on the usual 10:28 p.m. going south and their cars will be picked up by the Silver Comet at Hamlet.
The new train was built by the Budd Company, manufacturers, and, first Budd streamliner to go into service since the war, embodies everything new for comfort, safety and speed that railroad science has developed.
Correct, and the next question is yours.
Added comment. Sleepers on the Tennesean were silver-painted standard heavyweight Pullmans until the initial order of post-WWII lightweight sleepers arrived, I think 1947. Through sleepers were carried on regular PRR corridor trains to NY. At some time in tne postwar period there were also through coaches, but I do not remember just when or for how long.
SAL Silver Comet. NY-Atlanta-Birmingham
An easy one. The Southern was late in getting into the streamlined train business, with only two prior to WWII, the all-coach Southerner, NY (PRR) - New Orleans via Atlanta and Birmingham; and the Tennesian, Washington - Memphis, via Monroe, the N&W with steam, Bristol. A single E6-A powered the all-coach Southerner, while the Tennesean had both an A and B unit. Initially Aloces west of Bristol? Anyway, another railroad's activiities helped prompt the Southern finally to enter the streamlined-train era, paticiularly with the Southerner?
Name the railroad the specific train and endpoints.
Well, Dave, you found the area and the particular trains. Washington to Monroe on the Birmingham Special in the late afternoon, and back up on the Pelican in the early morning. Monroe was a division point on the Southern, so the N&W engines ran Roanoke-Monroe. I think that the N&W train crews also ran to Monroe, though I believe that the Southern passenger crews may have run to Lynchburg.
In addition to the Tennesian, I believe there were two other thru Southern trains that ran over the N&W, with N&W steam, between Monroe or Lynchburg and Bristol. I think one was the Pelican which then ran to New Orleans, and I am unsure of the other. I think these are the trains you are referring to, but betwen Washington and Monroe or Lynchburg.
Dave, I am sorry; I somehow missed your last response. No, you have the wrong area of the Southern.
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