Rob:
"Car Names, Numbers, Consists" is a great book.
Page 211 lists cars for "AuRoRa" train which includes former US Army Hospital Cars rebuilt for Alaska Railroad service and US Bureau of Mines safety cars.
My further thought is why did the US Government built so many hospital cars and what were the Bureau Mines safety cars built for.
Ed Burns
NP Eddie My further thought is why did the US Government built so many hospital cars and what were the Bureau Mines safety cars built for. Ed Burns
Ed during WW2 there was a great need for the hospital cars. Whole trains of them would bring wounded servicemen from the Atlantic and Pacific ports to military and VA hospitals throughout the US.
Mark
The Alaska cars were also fairly well known. KCSFan is currently closest.
"Car Names, Numbers, and Consists", page 121, lists two rebuilt Army hospital cars (89357 and 89387) to baggage dormitory cars 3401 and 3402 for Golden State service.
Mark got the train, Ed got the railroad. Both of you guys ask great questions.
SP also bought some other hospital cars for camp service. Rock Island supplied heavyweights head-end cars painted red and silver for Golden State service, though later baggage-dorm 820 from the stillborn Golden Rocket was assigned. In the early 1950s the RI consists sported a round-end sleeper observation, while SP's had a mid-train lounge and blunt-end sleepers.
Rob and all:
One railroad had Pullman sleeping cars named, but this railroad and Pullman used numbers to identify their cars.
What was the railroad and what type of accommodations did those cars have?
Good luck!
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF
This sounds like the NP, which, along with the Q and the SP&S, owned 18 each 6 roomette, 8 duplex roomette, 1 compartment, 3 double bedroom cars, and 6 each 1 compartment, 4 double bedrooms buffet observation cars that were built for the North Coast Limited. These cars later had their names removed, and were reported solely by their numbers. Later, NP received 7 each 6 roomette, 8 duplex roomette, 4 double bedroom cars, and 10 each 4 roomette, 4 double bedroom, 24-seat dome, 4 duplex single rooms (under the dome).
The SP also had sleepers that were identified by number--but never carried names. These were 10 roomette, 6 double bedroom cars (both for end-of-train service and for throughout the consist), 4 bedroom, 4 compartment, 2 drawing room cars, 22 roomettes, and 12 double bedroom; the NP provided 2 of the 10-6's.
Johnny
I think you're looking for the Nickel Plate. The Nickel Plate's cars had names but were identified by Pullman by their numbers, since they had "City of" names that in some cases conflicted with other Pullman cars.
SP and NP cars all had numbers only, except those SP cars in Golden State assignment, which had names or numbers, depending on the year. In later years many railroads created numbers for sleeping cars for accounting purposes but Pullman continued to identify the cars by name. Many Pullman tourist sleepers, and some special equipment, were identified by number.
You are correct. The names were in the "City of" series.
Next question to you.
This pair of colorful trains had a different name in each direction, both names containing something aimed at a target.
The NKP's Blue Arrow and Blue Dart which ran between Cleveland and St. Louis.
What was the date of those trains?
NP Eddie What was the date of those trains? Ed Burns
1956-1959 according to my source.
Mark is correct. Prior to 1956 they were just unnamed trains 9 and 10. Despite being secondary trains even by Nickel Plate's standards, they still rated a 10-6 sleeper and a 6 DBR lounge.
Following WW2 equipment was purchased for two new streamlined trains but plans for the trains were cancelled before they were ever inaugurated. What were the names and routes of these two stillborn streamliners?
C&O Chessie
RI/SP Golden Rocket
C&O's equipment was largely completed. C&O took delivery of most of the Chessie order, but promptly resold as much of it as it could. Some cars' configurations were changed before they were completed.
Rock Island took delivery of its set of Golden Rocket equipment but SP cancelled its order before it was started. Since only two sets were planned it seems that the idea was to run the train once a week in each direction. The Golden Rocket cars that were delivered entered Golden State service before the name was removed from the letterboard.
The C&O planned to run the Chessie behind its M-1 steam turbines on a 11hr- 45min daytime schedule over the 666 miles between Washington and Cincinnati. The 39-3/4 hour proposed schedule of the Golden Rocket between Chicago and Los Angeles would match the fastest times of the Santa Fe and UP trains. Looking forward to your next question, Rob.
This interurban remnant acquired a larger nearby, but not connected railroad in 1963.
The Iowa Terminal, formerly the Mason City and Clear Lake, bought the Charles City Western in 1963.
Correct! Both remained electric until the former CCW carbarn burned down in 1967. Most of the CCW is gone, but almost of the original IT remains, even if some of it is inactive.
over 50 years ago, from 1931 until the time of the Christie Street changes, there was one spot on the New York subway system where trains marked ____ express made local stops, and trains marked _____ local skipped these stops in one direction only. This was strictly a rush hours phenomenon.
The _____ is the same in both cases, and elsewhere the locals did make the local stops with the express passing them, in both directions.
Where, why, and how?
The locals did not run during non-rush-hours, with another route handling stops bypassed by the express on a 24 hour a day basis. The northern end of the local was different than that of the express. The southern end was the same, except for a few locals that were short-turned. During non-rush hours the expresses continued for about four more stations, stations served during rush hours by three-car wood open-platform shuttle trains, two motors flanking a trailer.
More hints: The Express began running around 1917 and continued almost unchanged up to Chrystie Street. The exception was that beginning in 1921, rush hour expresses skipped two stations where it stopped at other times, and one of these stations no longer is an active station. The local began running in 1931, as a rush hour operation only, continuing that way to the Christie Street reroutes. It did not require the motorman to change end at the north end, and the northbound run was somewhat different than the southbound. The steel express trains replaced around 1917 a service of wood elelvated cars that needed trolley poles for surface trackage.
The same steel equipment saw service on the line 1917 to Chrystie Street, when mostly stainless equipment began being used.
The latest change,only a few years old, with a route swap, sees the service serving three boroughs.
The surface track that was used by the pole-equipped elevated cars that served two boroughs was used by streetcars after the steel subway cars used the elevated structure above after 1917. The streetcar route had the same route disgnation, as the express and local subway trains route designation. A similar situation existed on a different route, but there the streetcars had the name of the street or avenue, and not the name of the rapid transit service that had used the surface tracks, and the trains on the structure initially were wood elevated cars, like those that had used the surface tracks, and not steel cars, which came about 14 years later.
like many New York City rapid transit lines, the structure where the locals ran express and the expresses ran local was over tracks used by streetcars that had been used by the elevated trains on the surface, and before that by steam railroa trains.
The street name, not used in the name of the route, is also name of a nearby high-school.
Someone even slightly familiar with NYCity transit history should have come up with the answer by now. Again, the steam railroad right-of-way became a street with the same name as the high-school located on that street.
Relevant personal history; In June 1971, between employment at Bolt Beranek and Newman and the start of the partnership Klepper Matshall King, I spent a month as a visiting engineer at Bell Labs, Murrey Hill, NJ. There is a station on the Gladstone line(?) of NJT, but no direct public transportation from that station to the lab, and the climb up the hill takes about a half hour. There is direct public bus service via the Summit and new New Providence bus lines, from the Summit station. My daily commute from Manhattan via PATH and Hoboken was aided by a non-stop Hoboken - Summmit express that carried a few passengers, including me, obviously an equipment move to get an early rush hour train to Hoboken back to Summit to make a local run to Hoboken. Might still be in the schedule after these 43 years.
In 1971 the fleet of the bus company comprised mostly pre-WWII gas buses, and most of the time I rode in prewar White and Ford Transit buses!
There is a tenouous relationship with the question's route and Cornelius Vanderbilt's mother. Part of the original steam railroad RofW, a relatively small portion near the southern end of the line, beyond the local's turnback point is still in use and is the oldest original RoW in the NYCity subway system. The steam railroad was promoted by Charles Gunthner (Sp?), graduated from the same Manhattan high school that I attended.
Dave:
I remember seeing pictures of small steam engines pulling rapid transit cars on overhead trackage. When were those steam engines discontinued? Where they tank engines? Was pollution a factor in converting from steam to electricity?
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