CB&Q suburban trains.

[daveklepper]

interesting, what non-standard trains do you see?

[Anonymous]

i see stuff even today that is not standard for the local trains. in railroading I have learned never say never.

[daveklepper]

Corroborating my own post above and those following, I lived in LaGrange the summer of 1952 for my summer job with EMD.  I saw plenty of CB&Q commuter trains, and did once ride behind steam in a bilevel train.   I can state definitely that there were zero open-platform cars in the suburban service in the summer of 1952.  The majority of cars were the green and tan standard steel coaches, downgraded from long-distance service and posibly remodeled with higher-capacity seating.  Converted coaches with arch roofs provided head-end power for the Budd gallery cars, and the standard coaches were still with  seam heat.  The E-units were still in the same pool as the long-distance trains, and in addition to steam, Pacifics, a GP-7 would occasionally power a shorter commuter train.   Including the one with two galleries when I got off the Trail Blazer from NYC to and bought a CB&Q tickedt to go to LaGrange.

I once sas a prairie, a 2-6-2, on a local freight.  Most were 2-8-2-s on local freights, O-4 4-8-4's or F-units on other freights.  Long-distance passenger trains drew diesels, very seldom if ever, steam..

When I lived in Westmount and worked mostly iin Downers Grove 1967-1970, the E-units handled all suburban trains, I think all with head-end power capability, and all suburban trains were gallery cars with cab-cars for push-pull operation.  These E-unis were separate from those handling the remaining long-distance trains.   I also did ride occasionally 1957-1967 on visits to Downers Grove, a period that saw the last of the conventional coaches removed and the conversion to head-end power and push-pull operation.

[james137]

Exactly, my new friend!  We were there.   There were NO open platform passenger cars on commuter trains at least from 1956 on.  Thank you.

[mistertrains]

I lived in Berwyn as a kid:  I was walking distance to the open field on the north side of the tracks that Burlington later used to build a freight house; where the IC tracks went up and over the 3-track racetrack.  I never saw an open platform coach on a commuter train.  Just the closed ones pictured and the bi-levels.  Both steam and diesel.  But here's the trade off:  If you rode a commuter train into Aurora, there were most certainly open platforms parked in the yard there.  Any trains that they went on were not trains scheduled at times when a young man such as myself was able to be at trackside.  

[james137]

Again, I lived from Jan 1956 to Jan 1959 along the CB&Q tracks - less than one block off on Spring Ave. in LaGrange.   In January 1959, we moved to Naperville.  In both La Grange and Naperville, my dad used to regularly take the Burlington commuters to Chicago, my mom also used to take us kids into Chicago for shopping.  In 1958, I was in first grade and went to St. Francis Xaxier school, which was across the tracks, so I walked over them twice a day.  I say this so you can google, if you like, how close I was to the line. 

Being a little train fanatic at the time, I watched with great interest what was happening on the CB&Q.  It was also in 1957 or 58 that the Disney movie 'The Great Locomotive Chase' and the TV show Casey Jones came out.  These were both big events with me then.   If I could have seen an open platform passenger car on the CB&Q line in those days, it would have been a big thrill to me.  The only ones I ever saw were the MOW cars that occasionally parked along the lines in La Grange (CB&Q MOW cars were painted orange back then). 

The intercity CB&Qs passenger trains were almost always solid stainless steel trains by the mid 50s.  The commuters trains were mostly the closed platform Kelly green and tan coaches with small sections of bilevels on them.  The coaches were gradually phased out so that by early 60s there were none left on the trains.  

I do not know where Classic Trains is getting this statement of 'open platform' CB&Q commuter cars from.  Maybe they were on the CB&Q line in 1946, but they were not in the middle 50s - they were completely gone.  Maybe other railroads were using them, but not the CB&Q.    There was only one commuter line on the CB&Q out of Chicago it went to Aurora and every train had to pass my house to get back and forth.  The interiors of the standard coaches were leather bench type seats - not rattan.   I was an eyewitness to this - a regular eyewitness, not occasional.

[daveklepper]

Bilevels were introduced about seven years before the end of steam in suburban service but replaced open platform cars within a year.  But it was not only bilevels that  replaced them, but also steel standard coaches replaced in long distance service by new stainless steel Budd-built coaches.

[james137]

I will see if I can find it.  However, I don't remember EVER seeing an open platform car on the CB&Q commuter trains - that's the point.  As I said, as a kid, I lived only a block away from the tracks and often was in my front yard or down at the end of the block watching the trains.  That would have been a real and memorable trainspotting event. 

I tried to post a link here to the only photo I could find on line of the old CB&Q coaches.  By 1956, A typical CB&Q commuter train was usually a silver E7 followed by a majority of the Kelly green and tan and silver roofed coaches with one or two bilevels in the train.    This was particularly true at the commuter hours of before 9 am and after 4 pm.  You could usually see long trains of 8 or 10 coaches and one or two of the bilevels.  It was considered 'a big deal' to see a train that was mostly bilevels.

[rcdrye]

First and Fastest, the magazine of the Shore Line Historical Society, did an in-depth article about the CB&Q's transition a couple of years ago.  There was some overlap of the open-platform cars with the bilevels, and some overlap with steam including at least a few instances of bilevels operating behind steam.  The article also covers the coaches you mentioned.

[james137]

My search of the web only turned up this picture of one of the old commuter cars.  The window color, as I remember it, was a lighter tan, but there were the ivory or gold pinstripes around it.   This was the standard pre-bilevel commuter car on the CB&Q in the 50s.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/45436499@N02/8388063438/

[james137]

I started this, because this issue of Classic Trains, pg 39 talks about open platformed coaches used in 1946 as suburban cars on the Burlington.   It seems to imply this continued until the adaption of the bilevels.  I was a child of 4 in 1956 La Grange, living one block off the CB&Q line and a train nut.   I was there as they began introducing the bilevels.  What the CB&Q used were coaches, but not open platformed.   I never saw any of those.  They were standard coaches, a find of forest green with a tan line along the windows.

I even rode on these cars to Chicago rather often with my mom and sisters for shopping and I would always protest having to sit in those cars when there were bilevels around (which were considered very cool).  The interior of those coaches had bench seats of leather or leather-like upholstery of a sienna brown - not rattan.   I never saw any rattan seats on the CB&Q.   Perhaps, Pinkepank is referring to much older cars already phased out by say, 1950.   Such cars, however did not exist in the 50s on suburban CB&Q commuter trains.