100 years ago, while the 20th Century Limited was on "The Water Level Route,” the Broadway Limited was on "The [2 words] Route.”
wanswheel Excerpt from More Classic Trains by Arthur D. Dubin The last wooden Pullman car was the Percivale, built in March 1910 for service on the Pennsylvania. The simply ornamented wood sheathing was painted Tuscan red. The interior featured full Empire ceiling, curved mahogany berth fronts,electric lighting, and electric fans at each end of car. This was the first use of green plush with a tulip pattern. Excerpt from The American Railroad Passenger Car by John H. White The Pennsylvania Railroad’s commitment to steel cars in 1907 was the beginning of the end of steel construction. New orders for wooden passenger equipment plummeted. In 1909 just over one-half of new orders were for wooden cars. By the next year, orders were down to 29 percent of the total. In 1912 only 276 all-wooden cars were built, and many of these were for Canadian lines. The following year the last all-wooden passenger cars were produced for domestic service. After this time the only cars with wooden bodies were built for export, and most of them had steel frames.
Excerpt from More Classic Trains by Arthur D. Dubin
The last wooden Pullman car was the Percivale, built in March 1910 for service on the Pennsylvania. The simply ornamented wood sheathing was painted Tuscan red. The interior featured full Empire ceiling, curved mahogany berth fronts,electric lighting, and electric fans at each end of car. This was the first use of green plush with a tulip pattern.
Excerpt from The American Railroad Passenger Car by John H. White
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s commitment to steel cars in 1907 was the beginning of the end of steel construction. New orders for wooden passenger equipment plummeted. In 1909 just over one-half of new orders were for wooden cars. By the next year, orders were down to 29 percent of the total. In 1912 only 276 all-wooden cars were built, and many of these were for Canadian lines. The following year the last all-wooden passenger cars were produced for domestic service. After this time the only cars with wooden bodies were built for export, and most of them had steel frames.
Interesting set of responses. Wanswheel gave the answer I was looking for with the Percivale, but the excerpt from White and input from others indicates that maybe I should have asked the question in a more qualified manner. Live and learn.
Wanswheel, your turn.
I do not by any means have at my fingertips the various dates for the addition of steel elements to what remained basically wood car bodies up to full steel construction. But yes, there is no doubt that the last wood-bodied Pullmans had center and side sills and drawbar carries and body bolsters of steel. Unsure of the vestibule construction. Probably you know more about that than I do.
As you know, the very first all-steel cars were the 1904 Gibbs cars for the LIRR and IRT, mu motor cars. At that time, the IRT already had composite cars of similar configuration, but still basically wood bodies. These did have steel ends as well as underframes.
ZephyrOverlandWhen was the last all-wooden Pullman sleeper built? What was its name and initial railroad assignment?
Does this include the Sessions composite ends, or plate-truss construction? Or do you mean 'before the introduction of full steel underframing'?
All the latter Pullman wood cars had steel underframes, beginning at least by 1900.
There was a topic, way back that I found, on this subject pertaining to the question.
"According to Pullman, the last wooden bodied cars built for its own general service were 10 sleepers in lot 3808, in 1910"
Not sure if wooden bodied means steel under frames. Also this answer specifies "for its own service" and not for someone else. That is what I have to date on this.
Great stuff...thanks RME...explains a lot.
Fighting the login wars, one cookie at a time.
Just as a peripheral note: the Michelin issues weren't exactly with the flanges, but with the underlying physical principle. The tread was made so it would cup around the railhead, with the part of the tire corresponding to the shoulders doing most of the lateral alignment. This is nifty French engineering ... when you are tracking straight smooth rails. Things start to degrade somewhat when you have frequent low joints that can (among other things) cause seps in a heavily-loaded contact patch. The real problem starts with where the necessary 'backup' flange goes, and what it does when lateral (either on a curve or due to truck/bogie dynamics) forces the tire up onto the 'inside' shoulder and theninto flange contact with accelerated impact combined with tire bounce. You can probably appreciate the possibility of resonance at certain speeds -- anyone here familiar with harmonic rock on Alco Hi-Ad trucks?
Meanwhile, similar issues come up when negotiating frogs and switch points at speed. The amount of deflection of the tread directly concerns how wide the tire can be between shoulders 'when deflected' and this in turn pegs both the flange spacing and permissible flange width fairly dramatically ... and not at all well.
A fairly quick "improvement" was to make the whole wheelrim solid and put the air-chamber "tire" as a sort of elastic sidewall between the rim and the wheel proper. The big catch here was lateral flexibility of the sidewalls -- and integrity of the rubber compounds and cordage used in the carcass fabrication. It is not terribly surprising that these ingenious vehicles were built and promoted with some vigor ... and then quietly made to disappear when it began to be clear why many of the problems had no real economically-practical solution...
According to Pullman Panorama, Volume 1 (1967), the last wooden Pullmans were built in 1909. This volume describes the heavyweight steel Pullmans built from 1910 through February 13, 1931.
I know that three more volumes were planned, but I do not recall seeing any advertisement for them--so I did not buy them
Johnny
Following up on the of the last wooden Pullman cars: "Railroad Passenger and Pullman Car Names, Wayner 1963, page 124 shows 23 10 sections-lounge cars built from 1906 to 1909 for various assignments. I don't know when the very last wooden Pullman car was built.
Ed Burns
This is a follow up to the question about rubber tires on railcars. I have ridden two hi-rail pickups with track inspectors. Do the rubber tires on various hi-rail trucks wear the same as tires on a non-hi-rail vehicles?
The next question...
The first all-steel Pullman sleeper was the Jamestown, built in 1907.
When was the last all-wooden Pullman sleeper built? What was its name and initial railroad assignment?
"The tires were not up to the wear of riding on steel rails and they did not track very well" - CSSHEGEWISCH
Thats what I needed to know...makes sense otherwise we would have seen and heard more about these things.
Very interesting though.
Anyone know what happened to Overmod? Hope he is ok.
Other Michelin-tired fiascos included "Silver Slipper" on the Texas & Pacific and a motor car on PRR. The tires were not up to the wear of riding on steel rails and they did not track very well.
Michelin tried really hard to get a rubber-tired railcar to work - there was also the Budd-Michelin railcar tried - wierdly enough - on the Cotton Belt. The Budd version had a tendency to derail due to the flange dynamics. The GM&N tried a hi-rail bus, and at least one southern road used a hi-rail school bus.
https://books.google.com/books?id=a-IDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=michelin+rail+coach&source=bl&ots=qfXujk03W_&sig=ws0zyMx85gMemXY14dIvrZbyi8I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwo_v1qM_OAhWBmR4KHY6WBkUQ6AEIQjAH#v=onepage&q=michelin%20rail%20coach&f=false
http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/d/d4/Er19310904.pdf page9
The Pneumatic Tired Railcoach- 100mph and smooth as silk and quieter than a Rolls Royce- ...so what became of these things?
I know that the Montreal subway system uses rubber tired equipment on their rails.
"Steam, Steel, and Limiteds" by Kratville,et all, page 107 also has a picture of the salon cars.
Myron, yes, your turn. This article doesn’t call the salon cars imperial but I’m pretty sure they were.
Most likely it would be the Sportsman, in 1930.
The F.F.V.? In 1893, the C&O called it the Fast Flying Virginian.
Nope, the George was inaugurated about 2 years too late to be first.
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/ImperialRussian/royalty/russia/train.html
Were the first ones not for the C&O George Washington...either that or Czar Nicholas of Russia whose whole train was called as having Imperial Salon cars, ...but I think that's way different.
I do not know what train was the first to carry Imperial Salon cars--but I do know that the L&N also had such cars for its coach passengers (probably not on the locals, though). The Heart of Dixie Railroad Club had an L&N coach which looked very much like those pictured in the C&O timetables way back.
Start with a hint from our late great old friend...
KCSfan You nailed it Buck - Light up a stogie and ask us another question. Incidentally the 1937 OG shows the Furniture City Special (and several other PM trains) carrying an "Imperial Salon Car for coach passengers" in addition to a buffet-lounge car. This is a new one on me and I'd like to hear from anyone who knows about this type of car. Mark
You nailed it Buck - Light up a stogie and ask us another question. Incidentally the 1937 OG shows the Furniture City Special (and several other PM trains) carrying an "Imperial Salon Car for coach passengers" in addition to a buffet-lounge car. This is a new one on me and I'd like to hear from anyone who knows about this type of car.
Mark
What was the first train to have Imperial Salon cars?
Wow!..I spent like 10 hours of time in research convinced that it had something to do with the Northern Pacific. Oh well, I learned a lot more than I knew previously!
That's the whole story.
Instead of crossing the border, the Rutland-Canadian took a left turn in Alburgh VT, where Rutland traded former O&LC rights from Swanton VT to Rouses Point NY into an agreement to share a pile trestle and bridge across Lake Champlain between Alburgh (or Alburg - the h moved about a bit...) and Rouses Point. The Rutland and Noyan gave an easy connection to the Grand Trunk system. For now obscure reasons the route via Noyan Jct was given up prior to WWI on favor of GT (later CN) interchange at Rouses Point. The joint CV/Rutland gantlet bridge lasted until the Rutland's abandonment. CV detoured to Rouses Point via Cantic QC until at least the mid-1980s as the replacement.
The Rutland-Canadian ROW is now a bike path, complete with a ferry replacing the former swing bridge across Missisquoi Bay.
Excerpt from “Vermont Central—Central Vermont" by Edward Hungerford (1942)
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3866496;view=2up;seq=5
On March 20, 1896, the Central Vermont was forced into receivership. All the rent installments had been promptly paid until the receivership was ordered. The C. V. had no money available for further payments so the court ordered the Rutland officers to take possession of their road on May 7, 1896. This was done and the Rutland was now free to pursue its own policies.
Once liberated from Central Vermont domination, the Rutland's first problem was to put its property in better operating condition, and then to increase its traffic. As the 1897 Annual Report states:
"The road had been so long merged with the Central Vermont system that it was comparatively unknown. It had no through business; no operating force. Physical facilities were pretty bad. No traffic reports for previous years were available with which to make comparisons."
The rehabilitation and upbuilding of the second Rutland system was undertaken when P. W. Clement, President of the road, was able to buy back control from the Delaware & Hudson. In order to bid for the western and Canadian traffic, physical expansion was mandatory and was immediately begun. In January, 1899, the Rutland purchased all the outstanding debt of the Ogdensburg & Lake Champlain R. R. and assumed management. The Ogdensburg Transit Co., operating eight steamers, had been closely tied in with the C. V. and O. & L. C. and had become bankrupt in 1899. Taking advantage of its predicament, the Rutland bought all the capital stock for $1,000,000 and organized the Rutland Transit Co. Connections were now under control from Rouses Point to Ogdensburg, N. Y. and the company had ships plying between Great Lakes ports and Ogdensburg. The next move entailed getting rail connections between the separated two divisions.
Plans had been drawn up for the construction of a line running diagonally across the islands of Champlain from Burlington to the Canadian line and to Rouses Point. Construction was commenced in 1898 as the Rutland-Canadian Railroad. It was leased in 1899 and consolidated with the Rutland in 1901. Entry into Canada was gained by leasing the 3.9 mile Rutland & Noyan Railroad which extended from the Canadian line to Noyan Junction, P. Q. These moves gave the road full control of the Ogdensburg traffic and a favorable position in competing for Canadian passengers and freight. The Connecticut River marked the eastern boundary of the line, however, and progress towards Boston was blocked by the competing Fitchburg Railroad (now part of the Boston & Maine R. R.) Therefore, development of the north and south line was the only alternative. The Bennington & Rutland R. R. was obtained in 1900 by purchase of its capital stock and first and second mortgages. The last acquisition came in 1901 when the insolvent Chatham & Lebanon Valley R. R. was absorbed by purchase of its capital stock and mortgage bonds.
The "***-Canadian" was incorporated for purposes of construction. It was folded into the parent railroad along with a connecting railroad and a short section that DID cross the Canadian border, but under a different name. The entire line was abandoned long enough ago to allow discussion of its abandonment to be OK on this thread.
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