In the summer of 52 they did try to insure silver painted power cars were always used with bilevels.
That was one of the power cars, which did have coach seats. That was pretty close to the time the HEP rebuild started. A HEP consist always had a green and white "E9", so a silver E8 or E9 needed a power car with more than two bilevels. It's possible the "E9" rebuilds were used with non-HEP cars during the transition, but I can't recall seeing any pictures that would prove it.
I don't know, but CB&Q M.O.W. cars were orange from the 50s at least into the early 70s.
I remember seeing a Burlington Northern commuter train at Hinsdale Illinois on a Sunday Morning in April of 1972 eastbound. There were the usual bi-levels but the coach next to the locomotive was a Burlington heavyweight coach painted silver. It did not have a clerestory roof. It was not a baggage car either and had windows. Was it used for newspaper deliveries or an extra coach?
To the Editor of CLASSIC NEWSPAPER Mag:
Dad was night bartender and closed up the bar across the street from the LIRR Montauk Branch station for Rockville Centre. "Centre" sp. is correct. And he'd bring home that day's paper. Current Events Education? Yes!
Which inspires these questions: in newspaper terms, one edition was called "the bulldog" edition; which was it? And there was a "5-star" edition, same question. These pertain to the NY Daily News of the early 1950's.
LIRR trains, MU and steam, delivered bundles of papers, then, to the many close together stops in the Long Island suburbs.
Let's get the papers straight: it was the Sun-Times and Tribune in the morning, and the Daily News and the American in the evening, adding the Daily Calumet and Hammond Times (both in the evening) in my neighborhood.
It's nice to see this here. It is just one of the many benefits of the internet. Invaluable details of Railroad history like this would probably never make it to a book form. The commuter trains delivered papers out in both the morning and evening. There was the Chicago Tribune in the morning and the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun Times in the evening. The Naperville Newspaper Agency was in an old dilapidated building next to the station. It picked up a lot of papers for daily delivery, including the Aurora Beacon. I think, but am not certain, their papers came in daily bulk deliveries from a baggage car. I also don't think any (or very few) of the passenger liners stopped in Naperville back in the 50s. Napervillians went either to Chicago or Aurora to catch trains because we were too small back then (15,000 people). I could be wrong, but I believe the baggage cars were attached to a morning and an afternooncommuter train for the deliveries.
rcdrye Some of the power cars were originally set up in the green, cream and tan scheme, and painted silver later after most of the single level cars had been retired. The Burlington, like all of the Chicago carriers, had a flourishing newspaper delvery business. C&NW just stacked the newspaper bundles in the gallery car entrances, usually on the right side of the train, since C&NW ran left-handed.
Some of the power cars were originally set up in the green, cream and tan scheme, and painted silver later after most of the single level cars had been retired. The Burlington, like all of the Chicago carriers, had a flourishing newspaper delvery business. C&NW just stacked the newspaper bundles in the gallery car entrances, usually on the right side of the train, since C&NW ran left-handed.
My memory says that all the arch-roof power cars were painted silver in the summer of 1952 and a few of the monitor roof power cars, with the most of the monitor roof power cars painted like the single-level coaches.
On the IC wire bound bundles of newspapers were piled high on the rear vestibule of early morning and late afternoon southbound local wicker liner trains. These would be thrown off by the flagman at the various towns along the route from Kensington to Matteson. I and the other paper boys would pick up and fold our papers at the IC station and head off our bicycles to deliver them to the subscribers on our routes.
Mark
Except for the fact that they were painted silver, not green, cream, and tan, like the single-level commuter coaches, and often had visible smoke from the roof vent, the power cars, both arch-roof and monitor room, did look like baggage cars. Possibly there was space inside where they could also be used for newspaper delivery.
Nice information. From age 4 to 6 I lived in La Grange on the first block of Spring Ave from the CB&Q tracks back around 55 - 58. As I said somewhere else, I was an avid train watcher back then. My mom would also take us kids into Chicago fairly often and my dad used the train to commute home from Chicago as well. I always tried to get on the Bilevels, because I thought they were so much better than the coaches. I had occasions to ride home on them (the single coaches) in the dark of winter, etc. and the lighting was kind of minimal in those coaches, as I remember them. Of course you could read, but it was by a kind of pale orange light. I don't remember the power cars at all. Were those baggage cars? I remember only the Es pulling the trains and it was one engine (occasionally 2, if a super long commuter train) and then the coaches. I believe baggage cars were used for newspapers thrown out at the stations on certain times of the day..
You meant open-platform cars. An open car usually refers to cross-bench open-sided cars, very popular at one time as trolley cars, but a few railroads had some also. The New Haven for one.
Most Chicago suburban service steam locomotives, nearly all, perhaps the PRR to Valpo being the one exception, had oversized steam electric generators to power lights (but not heat or air-conditioning) of the commuter coaches. Power cars were required for both the bilevels and the rehabbed long-distance coaches and closed-up rebuilt open-platform cars, which were air conditioned, and both bilevels and rebuilt single-level cars were used (not in the same train) with steam, also requiring generator cars, until steam was completely replaced in suburban service.
When were the last single-level rehabbed cars phased out?
I remember getting off the PRR Trailblazer from NY, renting one of the shower and change rooms that were availalbe in 1952, then going to my outbound train to LaGrange to report for work at EMD. And happy to see a train of two new bilevels with power car and one GP-7.
Power cars came in two varieties, monitor roof and high arched roof.
I had a rented furnished room near the Stone Avenue station.
Aside from railfanning and some EMD design work, my greatest pleasure were the Grant Park concerts, and much later in life got to design a new "shell" and sound system, but even that is 34 years ago.
Open cars were used into the mid and late 1940's. 'I think' it was 1952 when the first bi-level cars arrived. They were displayed to the public at several locations between Chicago and Aurora. I recall touring them on the Berwyn siding where they were displayed for a few hours. Seems like it was a Saturday. Sixty year old memory but seem to recall there was an E-unit, a power car and two or three bi-levels. Consist went west to another public display that day.
Don't know when the E-units started supplying HEP. The generator cars were painted silver. In the 50's & early 60's a common weekend and night consist would be a generator car and one bi-level. At Aurora the E-unit would be turned on a turntable at the west end of the depot.
Other interesting recollections as viewed from the apartment I grew up in which overlooked the CB&Q between LaVergne and Berwyn was the setout of the REA Express loads in CB&Q high speed mail and express cars which were former Army troop sleepers. The last suburban train, originally a 2:15 AM departure and later when that train was discontinued the 1:15 AM departure from CUS. Train had three of these loads: one was set out at Berwyn, another at Downers Grove (I think) and another at Aurora. Sort of interesting to see a commuter train setting out a car. The process repeated itself in the late afternoon when a car was picked up at Riverside along with two other REA loads. At one time mail was loaded into a baggage car at Berwyn. A platform height ramp existed on the south track at about Wesley Avenue. US Mail trucks would backup to the car and load mail for 5 or 10 minutes. After WWII the Post Office used former military trucks to bring mail to the train. Somewhere there is a family pic of an E5 showing the mail loading.
Two other recollections were the rides from Berwyn to CUS and walking up the ramp into the station alongside the steam engines. The heat from the firebox and the smells of burning soft coal and valve oil, and the faces of the engineer and fireman are still remembered. One time we boarded our westbound train. The eastbound steam engine was still on the train. Seats had been flipped and faced west. Train crew advised the lights in the car would be going off for a short time. A west facing engine was added and the lights came back on. I never have read anything about the steam engines supplying car lighting electricity. My recollection is the cars were not well lit, probably fine for the time.
There were a couple of conventional equipped trains that made their first stop at Berwyn. Engineers would set the brakes in front of the apartment I lived in for the station stop about 1500/2000 feet distant. Brake shoe sparks were a sight especially in the winter months when it was dark out.
I think the power cars were gone by Spring1970, and last operated winter 1969-1970, with a segregated E-unit pool for suburban trains. Am I correct on this? Or did this wait until METRA? Or until Amtrak?
The CB&Q bilevels had 72 volt lights and steam heat even after push-pull operation started, as commuter locomotives were pooled with main line locomotives. As long as only two cars were used a tap off the engine's generator was enough fopr lighting. The heavyweight cars on one end of the consist contained a lighting generator for longer trains.
The easiest way to tell the difference between the ex-open platform cars and ex-long distance cars was that the former long distance cars had the A/C bulge on roof flanking the clerestory. The ex-open platform cars seem to have been rebuilt with internal ducts. Some but not all of the ex long-distance cars had six wheel trucks as well.
this forum is an amazing wealth of information that keeps me coming back every chance I get which is not often enough. formerly rrandb
I think by Spring 1970 they were all getting power from locomotives. But there may have been some trains that were not push-pulls. Most were, though.
In 1952 the Boston and Maine still has gobs of steel-framed wood opep-platform coaches in service, mostly in suburban service out of Boston, some on branches. The Delaware and Hudson still used steel open-platform coaches (wotj roller bearings) on its Carbondale - Scranton local in the summer of 1950. But the steel New Haven open-platform MUs had been retired by infusion of the Pullman-built air-conditioned 4400-seeries "washboards."
I am not certain that t he "Wyatt Erps" used by a DL&W on the Boonton service are really open-platform coaches, since they do or did have end-posts, floor to ceiling, flanking the usual "train-door" location, without the train-door. They were still running in 1967!
Based on a few photos that I took from Roosevelt Rd and Congress Park in 1969, Burlington's suburban trains were a mix of HEP from the locomotive or from a converted heavyweight coach. Not all trains were push-pulls and I do remember inbound suburban trains being pulled by an E.
rcdrye CB&Q had "heavyweights" that were both converted open-platform and converted long-haul. Both types seemed to have lasted until the mid 1960s. All of them were fitted with "ice" air-conditioning, where blocks of ice were put in bunkers under the cars for fans to blow across. This is not such a crazy idea as it seems as the Railway Express reefers ice dock was near the CB&Q's coach yard, so ice was easily available. C&NW does get credit for originating push-pull in 1958. The first C&NW bilevels came in 1955. C&NW bilevels operated behind steam in 1955 and 1956. SP also had bilevels in the 1950s, which occasionally ran behind steam, but never operated them push-pull prior to Caltrain. The other bilevel operators, CMStP&P and CRI&P, got theirs in the 1960s, and ran push-pull from the beginning. The spring 2007 issue is still available from http://www.shore-line.org/Back_Issues.lasso
CB&Q had "heavyweights" that were both converted open-platform and converted long-haul. Both types seemed to have lasted until the mid 1960s. All of them were fitted with "ice" air-conditioning, where blocks of ice were put in bunkers under the cars for fans to blow across. This is not such a crazy idea as it seems as the Railway Express reefers ice dock was near the CB&Q's coach yard, so ice was easily available.
C&NW does get credit for originating push-pull in 1958. The first C&NW bilevels came in 1955. C&NW bilevels operated behind steam in 1955 and 1956. SP also had bilevels in the 1950s, which occasionally ran behind steam, but never operated them push-pull prior to Caltrain. The other bilevel operators, CMStP&P and CRI&P, got theirs in the 1960s, and ran push-pull from the beginning.
The spring 2007 issue is still available from http://www.shore-line.org/Back_Issues.lasso
Regading ice air-condiioning, nearly all heavyweight Pullmans of all types had this mode of air-conditioning by the mid=30s, and the C&O, B&O, AT&SF had most long-distance coaches air-conditioned this way. Other railroads as well. And they and the Southern and others had dining cars air-conditioned this way.
In 1952 I did not notice any differences between suburban coaches converted from long-distance coaches and those converted from open-platform coaches. Were there differences?
You really should answer the transit cars on railroads question. You have more detailed information on four of the operations than I do! And I hope you will provide the details as well as answering the question.
Did the Milwaukee ever use open-platform suburban cars? In 1952 it was the only suburban operaton I did not ride or see in operation. The C&WI with its Erie-design Stillwells was the other I did not ride, but I did see it. None that I saw or rode used open-platform coaches in 1952. Gobs of "gate-cars" on the "L" though!
1967 all or nearly all push-pull
Right push-pulls was in the middle of the 60s. All were pulled before then.
rcdrye First push-pull operation of bilevels in 1965, cars later converted to HEP.
First push-pull operation of bilevels in 1965, cars later converted to HEP.
Rob, I am glad you clarified that point. I commuted on the Q to Cicero from Fairview Ave. in Downers Grove in 1959 and then from Naperville in 1960-62 and didn't remember for sure, but thought none of the trains operated push-pull with bilevel cab cars in those years.
I tried to find that article at First and Fastest, but gave up at 2009. 2007 is a wee tad more than a couple of years. I will try and see if I can get a copy of it. So you are saying they enclosed the open platforms? I know the Kelly green commuter coaches did not have the same look of 'massiveness' of regular passenger cars. Even at a young age, I could distinguish that. These single level coaches were a regular feature, and I mean on nearly every train, right up until 1959 while the bilevels were the exotic cars on those trains. The bilevels only started becoming the norm on the commuter trains after 1960 at which time, the old single levels now became the 'exotic' nostalgic car on the commuter trains.I also noticed in this month's Walthers catalogue, they are saying it was Northwestern that originated the bilevels! The misinformation goes on and on!
I went back in the files and found the First and Fastest article, which was Spring 2007 (a couple of years ago...). The open platform cars in the 7100 series were built between 1928 and 1930 in CB&Q's Aurora shops. Aurora Shops rebuilt them into the 7100 series single level cars with vestibles you remember, so the overlap in operation may have been only in 1950 and 1951. Paint scheme was the result of a contest.
Notes from the article: Bilevel cars as built were steam heated, with propane powered AC, and 72 volt lights which required a power car for more than two of them (otherwise tapped off the locomotive). 6100 series cars were rebuilt from former long-haul coaches, 7200 and 7300 cars were coach/power and coach/baggage/power. First push-pull operation of bilevels in 1965, cars later converted to HEP.
I won't ever say you will never see something unusual, only that the usual trains in commuter service on the CB&Q in the late 50s did not include open platform coaches, but did routinely and even in the main, have the standard coaches of Kelly green and light tan. It is the routine 'usual' that makes the 'unusual' unusual. There is nearly nothing more routine and usual than commuter trains. The hilevels were the exotic and exciting things on those trains - to me at that time, anyway.
One of my best memories of La Grange was going to an EMD open house in 1957 (I think). They had an Aero train parked in the locomotive lot that was the highlight of highlights my tour there. I thought the plant floor where they built the engines was heaven and remember seeing a GP7 or 9 superstructure on an overhead crane above the motor and chassis. It was truly a spectacular place for a 4 or 5 year old train nut.
a few days ago the ringling brother train. a unique private passenger train that hauls live stock and freight pulled by former up sd40 that were painted in a historic speedway to sunshine red and yellow with black cats whisker on their noses.
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