Elkhart Valley seems to have survived the 1940 Lake Shore wreck at Gulf Curve New York. It's listed as having been rebuilt from plan 3988G to 3988H in 1941. It's not listed in the 1950 List of Cars, but Pullman-owned sister car Catskill Valley, also rebuilt to plan 3988H is listed there. Catskill Valley used Pullman diagram 374:
374 1 drawing room (A), 1 single bedroom (B), buffet, 18 seats lounge (1 to 18) and 8 seats smoking lounge (19 to 26). Room A adjoins smoking lounge and room B adjoins lounge. Connecting rooms (A and B). Seats (5 and 7), (13 and 15) and (25 and 26) are settee seats.
The above diagram suggests a front-of-train car. Cars with observation platforms or solariums are (usually) so marked in the diagram books.
Elkhart_Valley by Edmund, on Flickr
I seem to recall a NYC Historical Society Headlight magazine with considerable background on the Valley cars. I'll see if I can find it.
Cheers, Ed
It looks good--but it is a drawing room-bedroom car. A compartment had two seats facing one another, just as a section did.
Johnny
Deggesty A compartment had two seats facing one another, just as a section did.
The sketch was done by Frank B. Masters. I am only the messenger. Had I known of the glaring inaccuracy I would not have posted the image.
I'm sorry if I disseminated false information. I believe Mr. Masters can no longer defend his choice of the word "compartment" in stead of bedroom. He was age 57 in 1930 when the sketch was published.
http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/images/pullman-3988.jpg
The OP mentioned the Elkhart Valley in his query. It seems the car in the sketch would presumably be the Elkhart Valley.
I'll step away now... hope I didn't waste anyone's time.
Ed
I should have been a bit kinder in my comments, especially since I now know that this drawing was made when the car was only about a year old (built in 1929). The description in Pullman Panorama Volume I is "one single bedroom one drawing room lounge buffet observation." If you look closely, you will see the galley at the front of the forward lounge.
Thank you for posting the drawing; it adds perspective to he floor plan that is Kratville's Passenger Car Catalog.
Please stay with us.
Looking around in the 1950 Pullman list I found a fair number of 3988 variants still around. All of the variations seemed to involve small differences in the lounge seats - none of them called out a diagram with an observation lounge.
I mostly posted this thread because initial reports from the Gulf Curve wreck suggested several of the cars were scrapped on site. I was surprised Elkhart Valley survived since it was one of the cars that derailed, and was near the front of the train.
rcdrye I was surprised Elkhart Valley survived since it was one of the cars that derailed, and was near the front of the train.
Still wracking my poor brain to remember where I saw the photo of the observation-lounge of the Elkhart Valley taken after the wreck.
There is a photo, with the image reversed, of it - as built - on page 113, of the 1962 Lucius Beebe 20th Century book.
I do not guarantee the accuracy of the reporting in the above film.
Regards, Ed
ALL:
I viewed that less than one minute film clip on "You Tube" and also am surprised that the "Elkhart Valley" survived. Can anyone make out the name of the Pullman car being pulled from the wreckage?
Ed Burns
I've stopped the clip and examined with a magnifying glass but I cannot make out the lettering, mostly due to the angle.
There were 4 Pullmans on the train...Red Ash, Poplar Arch, Poplar Dome and of course Elkhart Valley.
Someone with a keen eye and better forensics than me maybe able to identify which, or perhaps match the car up with it's known appearance.
I viewed and re-viewed that short clip about four times. As Miningman said the angle makes it difficult to see. Adding in the dirt on the car also adds to the confusion. I can makeout the "Pullman" on the letterboard. Viewing with a large magnifying glass, I can makeout a long first name, followed by a four letter second name, but it is still covered with dirt. I am leaning to the Poplar Arch or Poplar Dome with the Poplar Arch my first guess. Rob Drye, does your 1950 list of Pullman cars have the "Red Ash", "Poplar Arch", or "Poplar Dome" listed? I suspect that the first three cars were scrapped on site.
Ed, both of the 6 section 6 double bedroom cars, Poplar Arch and Poplar Dome were scrapped in 1940.
I have not yet found Red Ash (if I knew what accommodations it had, it would be easier for me to find it.) It may also have been rebuilt (the two Poplar cars were built as 12 section drawing room cars).
From the Pullman Project database lists
Red Ash wrecked at Little Falls NY 19-Apr-1940
Poplar Arch wrecked at Little Falls NY 19-Apr-1940
Poplar Dome wrecked at Little Falls NY 19-Apr-1940. Poplar Dome was moved to Pullman's Buffalo shop, where it was scrapped 12-Feb-1941
Elkhart Valley is also listed as wrecked at Little Falls 19-Apr-1940 in the main Pullman Project database (record 10322).
No other Pullman cars were destroyed in the same wreck.
Red Ash and Elkhart Valley are listed as Pullman Std paint (green), Poplar Arch and Poplar Dome were in NYC two-tone gray. Red Ash was plan 3410A (12 sec 1 DR), the Poplar cars were plan 4084 (6 sec, 6 DBR) rebuilt from 2410 (12 sec 1 DR)
Looks like I was looking at the record for "Catskill Valley" (10321) and attributing its rebuild dates to "Elkhart Valley". The car plan and diagram numbers are the same, but not rebuild or "retirement" dates.
Elkhart Valley had Mechanical A/C installed May 1934.
Well it does not answer the question as to which car is in the film clip.
From Wiki: --At the state capitol, Governor Herbert H. Lehman directed the State Police and Public Works employees to "give all possible aid".[4] The last body was pulled from the wreckage on April 21.[6] Thirty-five Chinese nationals en route to San Francisco in the custody of a United States Marshall, who were being deported for entering the US illegally, were in the last car and were uninjured.[7][4](Another source says they were being transported to Canada, from where they entered the US.)[..
Dozens of other trains were delayed in the days following the wreck; the site was bypassed by routing trains, including the 20th Century Limited, the Commodore Vanderbilt, and the Water Level Limited between Utica and Schenectady over West Shore Railroad tracks.[7][4]
The wreck was on page one of newspapers across the country. The New York Times gave the story a two-column headline on page one on April 20, and on Sunday, April 21 it was still on the first page with a huge panoramic photograph of the wreck site.[10] Photographs of the crash were published in the 2010 book Images of America Little Falls.[13]
Wonder what happened to the Chinese Nationals?
Sorry, article did not fit and cut off on right hand side. I think you can fill in the missing words for the most part.
35 Chinese Nationals on the train were being deported but were all unhurt as their car remained upright on the tracks.
The engineer, 65, was days away from retiring. How many times have we seen that scenario...he was speeding and did not slow for the big curve. The brakes were working, he entered the curve at 74mph and pulled back on the throttle but did not touch the brakes. The curve was to be taken at 45mph and he knew that, did that route many times. Train was running a bit late. Looks like he was pushing his luck. He survived the crash but died later at the scene. Shades of Captain Smith.
Excerpt from Central Headlight, Dec. 1947 http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/headlight/images/headlight-1247.pdf Climaxing another feat of modern railway engineering, the New York Central System opened at Little Falls, N.Y., November 19, an elaborate, $2,500,000 construction project, which changes the course of the Mohawk River and eliminates a sharp curve in the Central's busy four-track main line. Mayor Clifton E. Wagoner of Little Falls and railroad officials participated in a brief, informal ribbon-snapping ceremony as the first two tracks were placed in operation early in the afternoon to permit the westbound Empire State Express to inaugurate regular service over the new cutoff. The newest Central improvement project—part of a postwar program already involving commitments totaling about $200,000,000—is at a relatively narrow, 500-yard cleft in the Appalachians. Squeezing through this Mohawk Valley pass are the Central's main tracks, the separate tracks of the Central's West Shore Railroad, the Mohawk River, the New York State Barge Canal, and a State highway, which also will be straightened when the old railroad tracks are removed. Extensive advance planning, and 14 months of large scale construction were required for the job of reducing the Central's "Gulf Curve" from seven degrees and 24 minutes to only one degree and 30 minutes. The new tracks will permit train operation at regular speed, whereas the old curve—ordained by the Mohawk's original course—had necessitated a "slow order" of 45 miles per hour.
https://archive.org/stream/ldpd_6285087_000#page/n29/mode/2up
https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/anniversary-of-the-lake-shore-limited-wreck
https://books.google.com/books?id=aXFCAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA11-PA38&dq=%22looking+east+along+the+new+alinement+of+gulf+curve%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1nPWs5q7ZAhUSNd8KHb91CGMQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Based on the paint which is NYC gray, the car being moved in the newsreel is one of the Poplar cars. I would bet, since the car was movable, that it was the Poplar Dome, which was scrapped at Buffalo and not on site.
Way I heard the crash was different; even Staufer's account in Thoroughbreds had more detail. The amazing thing is that RFE Bayreuther, who to me is the key to this situation, lived through it in that cab!
The issue was closing the throttle sharply without either using the air or changing the reverse position (the wheel reverse being a bit implicated here). Bayreuther said he told Earl to slow down when he realized where they were; interestingly Staufer thought they were well below tip over speed and would have been safe -- admittedly with a lot of broken crockery in the diner and some bad language from passengers -- if the train had been kept stretched going through.
What happened was that the Hudson suffered the equivalent of massive engine braking and the progressive hammering of slack against the drawbar knocked the tender and then the engine up and out. Nice jagged rock adjacent in the cut penetrated the wrapper easily and There It Went. That the trailing truck and booster disappeared and are gone to this day should be further suggestion that this involved far more than an over speed derailment like the recent 501 accident.
Was not the trailing truck and booster discovered in the riverbed while during a riverbed survey or an EM survey. Not visually found but outlined nonetheless, fairly recently.
So sad. Devils and demons at work. You could be sleeping in bed one night and some object from the sky or space crashes through your roof and you.
I believe the NYC had gone something like 13 years without a major passenger fatality accident at that time. They ran a lot lot more trains than Amtrak and at higher speeds with the Hudsons.
If the trailing-truck signature has been found, send me the reference. I know people who know people, and it can be recovered...
gmpullmanStill wracking my poor brain to remember where I saw the photo of the observation-lounge of the Elkhart Valley taken after the wreck.
Persistence pays off...
Valley2a by Edmund, on Flickr
Pullman Company Photograph
Before view
Valley2_2 by Edmund, on Flickr
This would be the after.
And a general arrangement of the aftermath from the ICC report.
Valley2_1 by Edmund, on Flickr
The seventh car, Pullman Elkhart Valley, was derailed and stopped on its right side diagonally across track No. 4, parallel to the body of the fourth car and on top of the trucks of the fourth car; the front end of the seventh car crushed into the side of the first car; both trucks were in place but the wheels of the front truck were about 15 feet distant from the front end of the car; the superstructure at the front end was demolished and the front coupler-head was broken; the superstructure at the rear end was twisted and bent, the body end-sill and the left side-sill were broken, and the side sheets on the right side were torn, bent, and buckled the entire length of the car.
Read more here:
http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+2437)
Another quote from the report:
Note:- The 4-wheel trailer truck was not found and it is supposed that it fell in the river.
I was not there at the time so I can not attest to the accuracy of these images or the information contained herein.
The top photo is the one that's reversed in the 1961 Beebe book "Twentieth Century Limited". The lower photo doesn't show much of a hint about whether the platform had been rebuilt into a solarium or simply closed off.
gmpullman-- Bravo, great find, terrific pics.
rcdryeThe lower photo doesn't show much of a hint about whether the platform had been rebuilt into a solarium or simply closed off.
I agree. Although, as shown, it certainly qualifies as an open-end observation car.
Miningman gmpullman-- Bravo, great find, terrific pics.
Thank you. Glad they were of interest.
LittleFalls by Edmund, on Flickr
It is always rewarding to sift through the dust of history.
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