There are a lot of windows behind the baggage door of CGW 1000 for a non-passenger section... That section was clearly shortened for its later life as a locomotive of sorts. I'm going with the Blue Bird as first, since it entered service in January 1929, while the Bullets showed up at the National Electric Railway equipment convention in Atlantic City in 1931.
First streamliner? Which came first, both 1929, Brill Phila. & Western Bullets or the Bluebird?
rcdrye The motor car had a 15' RPO, a baggage/express compartment and a passenger section (probably the "smoker" but I haven't been able to verify that).
The motor car had a 15' RPO, a baggage/express compartment and a passenger section (probably the "smoker" but I haven't been able to verify that).
Rob, good luck verifying the smoker.
passengerfan ...This three-car motorcar train was actually three McKeen cars rebuilt by the CGW Oelwein shops into a power unit and two trailers. The Power cars contained Control Cab-Engine Room-15’ Railway Post Office and Baggage space and carried the number 1000. The second car was a 74-revenue seat Coach numbered 1001. The third car 1002 contained a small Kitchen and Pantry with eight seat dining area at two tables for four. A twenty seat Business Class section as today’s Airlines would refer to it, not as Spartan as regular coach seats yet certainly not up to Parlor car seating standards. To the rear of this seating was four Pullman Sections used for transporting passengers to and from the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The final compartment in car 1002 was the Parlor Observation room with parlor seats for thirteen. The BLUE BIRD would probably qualify as a semi-streamlined train when it entered service January 13, 1929. The exterior of the three-car gasoline electric train was painted a very dark Royal Blue with all lettering and numbers in Gold Leaf...
...This three-car motorcar train was actually three McKeen cars rebuilt by the CGW Oelwein shops into a power unit and two trailers. The Power cars contained Control Cab-Engine Room-15’ Railway Post Office and Baggage space and carried the number 1000. The second car was a 74-revenue seat Coach numbered 1001. The third car 1002 contained a small Kitchen and Pantry with eight seat dining area at two tables for four. A twenty seat Business Class section as today’s Airlines would refer to it, not as Spartan as regular coach seats yet certainly not up to Parlor car seating standards. To the rear of this seating was four Pullman Sections used for transporting passengers to and from the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The final compartment in car 1002 was the Parlor Observation room with parlor seats for thirteen. The BLUE BIRD would probably qualify as a semi-streamlined train when it entered service January 13, 1929. The exterior of the three-car gasoline electric train was painted a very dark Royal Blue with all lettering and numbers in Gold Leaf...
https://books.google.com/books?id=SC5gtCc7A7sC&pg=PA62&dq=%22+six+years+after+the+red+bird%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin0cipjtTQAhVn5oMKHS-tBrAQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22%20six%20years%20after%20the%20red%20bird%22&f=
I deliberately held the Mayo angle to require a bit of thinking...
The three car train was built out of parts of several McKeen cars, plus a new front end including the 275 HP Winton engine and EMC electrical parts. The carbodies were rebuilt in CGW's Oelwein Iowa shops.
The motor car had a 15' RPO, a baggage/express compartment and a passenger section (probably the "smoker" but I haven't been able to verify that). The middle car had 76 seats, the rear car was split between coach and parlor sections, with a small lounge at the rear. Two Pullman sections were included with stretcher windows to handle passengers bound for the Mayo Clinic.
CGW also owned the first EMC railcar, their number M-300 built in 1924. EMC was also involved with McKeen repowerings on the Union Pacific.
http://railroads.railroadheritage.org/SPT--FullRecord.php?ResourceId=1135
http://www.nsrm-friends.org/nsrm87.html
http://www.mckeencar.com/gallery-2/c/chicago-great-western-railway/
https://archive.org/stream/minnesotastategu00writrich#page/270/mode/2up
CSSHEGEWISCHThat would be the "Blue Bird" on Chicago Great Western, rebuilt from McKeen cars, repowered with Winton engines from EMC.
The question might have added something about the special service for which as I recall the train was built -- service to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
This was a train that deserves more technical historical attention than I have seen it receive. Are there any good articles or discussion about its design and construction?
That would be the "Blue Bird" on Chicago Great Western, rebuilt from McKeen cars, repowered with Winton engines from EMC.
In 1929, this railroad rebuilt several old motor cars into a motor train powered by a newcomer into the motor car market. The train included RPO space and two Pullman sections.
Yup. The TT tells us that for the night service between Atlanta and Brunswick, there is a motor-powered coach train between Jesup and Brunswick. To me, that says that the equipment of the Cracker carries the Atlanta-Brunswick sleeper between Jesup and Brunswick, connecting with the Kansas City-Florida Special in Jesup. Thus, you do not need to keep an engine in Brunswick just for that service.
Johnny
My oops on the Vulcan. I followed a note and should have remembered your question somewhere way up in the thread.
I would guess - without any timetables handy - that it handled a connection off of the Kansas City-Florida Special between Jesup and Brunswick. The main part of the train would have headed south towards Jacksonville (via ACL trackage rights) at Jesup.
I may have phrased the question wrongly. Perhaps I should have asked "What other train did the Cracker's engines power?"
Incidentally, I have no TT that shows the Vulcan operating to Chattanooga. In 1943 it was a Columbus, Mississippi,-Mobile train.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. The other services run with the FM power cars were the Goldenrod, Vulcan and Joe Wheeler, on Chattanooga-Mobile and Tuscumbia AL-Oakdale TN schedules. Looking at it another way, the power cars were also RPO and baggage cars.
For several years, the Southern operated what it called "Motor-powered Coach Trains." One of the schedules was for the Cracker, a day train between Atlanta and Brunswick,Ga.
What other service did each engine for this train perform?
Johnny has the correct answer in the Oakland - L.A. Owl.
Sharing its name with the T&NO's overnight Dallas-Houston train (which lost its sleepers in 1955), the Owl ran on SP's West Valley line, handling lots of mail and express in addition to passengers. In its last years it had dwindled to a single 6-6-4 sleeper, an articulated coach, a snack bar coach and a bunch of head-end equipment. The Owl was discontinued in 1965, only three years before the much better known Lark.
The runner-up for open sections in SP's world was the City of San Francisco, which carried a St. Louis 6-6-4 ( postwar National car belonging to UP or Wabash) for two years after the San Francisco Overland was discontinued in 1962. All of the cars were prewar cars in SP's 9500 series and stemmed from earlier service on the Lark (which went all-room in 1949) and other SP trains, including the City of San Francisco.
Or overnight Houston - New Orleans?
The Oakland-LA Owl?
Sorry about the delay - asleep at the switch...
This secondary SP name train was the last SP train to carry open sections. It shared its name with another SP train that had become coach-only years before.
And a reminder to good old knowlegeable rc for another quesiton.
Although only the parlor was actually converted to commuter seating, the idea behind the design was clearly the idea that such conversion was possible, and this idea was widely promulgated at the time.
Any in use today?
Prewar 6 sec, 6 rmt, 4 DBR cars (UP/C&NW/SP "American" something AT&SF "Valley", SP 500 series) were laid out with the roomettes in the middle. Postwar "National", "Pine", "Beach" and CN's pullman-built "Green" cars (and most likely the CB&Q's cars) had the bedrooms in the middle. Other railroads that had prewar 6-6-4 cars were MP, Erie and IC. UP had both "American" and "National" series cars.
Rob and All:
Just a comment that some railroads referred to the six roomettes, six sections, and four double bedrooms as "6-6-4's while others referred to them as "6-4-6's" to reflect the actual layout of the cars.
Ed Burns
The only bi-level long-distance car that was converted to a commuter coach was the all-parlor 6400. All of the others were leased and later purchased by Amtrak and used mainly in Illinois and Wisconsin corridor trains until retired. The Bi-Level "400s" ran on various routes north of Chicago, often completing multiple trips in a day. An example would be one set that originated in Milwaukee, ran to Chicago as a "commuter 400", then headed north to Green bay as a "Flambeau 400". In the summer season they ran as far north as U.P. Michigan, covering both routes to Green Bay, Menominee and Ironwood. The C&NW agreed to purchase the cars and run the "400s" on main routes that were still financially reasonable in exchange for permission to discontinue a fairly large number of financially hopeless local services.
Some of the cars were sold for further service after they were retired in the early 1990s - notably to the Alaska RR. Amtrak added cabs to two or three of the coaches to allow push-pull operation.
Continiue, please, with the route of the C&NW cars, before and afer Amtrak start-up. Why were these caars purchased?
As far as I know, al the C&NW long-distance gallery cars were eventually converted to commuter coaches. Not, or course, the single-level diners with false roofs.
Some of the single-level C&NW long-disance lightweight cars were sold to the Q and replaced their last long-distance heavyweight peak-traffic cars. They were painted silver, but without any shading to simulate fluting.
Although C&NW's were marketed as bilevels, they were actually gallery cars, all P-S built to the same carbody specs as C&NW's commuter fleet. One of them, parlor car 6400, was later converted to a commuter coach (but with nicer restrooms...) C&NW even filled out the fleet by adding roof extensions to diners and various lounge equipment, with and without baggage and RPO sections.
Santa Fe's Budd-built cars were - as advertised - "Hi-Level" since the lower level didn't go to the end of the cars. The original 1954 pair, about a third of the 1956 second order and some of the 1964 third order of coaches had transition steps at either the front or the back (car going forward with the downstairs bathroom corridor on the right). Some of the 1964 order had space for the news agent as well. 1954 and 1956 order used on the El Capitan (and combined Super Chief/El Capitan) with the 1964 order allowing cars to spread to the Texas Chief and San Francisco Chief.
Amtrak assignments included the Chiefs, Sunset and Panama Limited, along with other service mixed with Superliners, like the short-lived Houston section of the Texas Eagle. Some of the lounges are still in service as "Pacific Parlor Cars" on the Coast Starlight. Last Amtrak service for coaches was the Heartland Flyer.
Both the C&NW and AT&SF designs were 15' 10" tall, shorter than the 16' 4" of the Superliners.
Those are the two railroads. Why don;t you try to fill in the details?
One railroad bought nee cars for more economical operation, with increased capacitiy and confort fewer car milrs. The other bought new cars to provide better service bargain with a state DOT for dropping money-loosing intrastate trains. Whihc is which? Then go on with your descirptions.
I'll get the party started with ATSF and C&NW (we've had threads concerning the bilevels on the Flambeau 400 service, for example). I leave it to the experts here to fill in the rest of the detail and do whatever they want with questions.
Before Amtrak's Superliners, two provate railraods used bilevel cars in long-distance service. Describe the economics reasons for both railroads' decisions, routes, description of te differendes between the two bi-level designis, use aafter 1 May 1971, uses beyond Amtrak, as a minimum, with as mucch information as you can provide additional.
The Ponce de Leon carried the 10secRest car for the last couple of off-seasons it ran with any sleepers at all.
Royal Palm or Ponce de Leon (Southern) Cincy-Jax?
Full disclosure: I'm sure the train carried sleepers with rooms from time to time, if only a pool-service 12-1 during the season. But for the last few off-seasons that it even carried a sleeper, all the OG listed for sleeping accomodations was a 10 section-restaurant car.
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