Passenger Car Construction

[daveklepper]

Nate Gerstein unearthed a photo of an i.R.T. experiment for tight-lock Van Dorn couplers. Anyone have more information?

[daveklepper]

Front view:

At first I thought the couple was a Tomlinson but it is probably a Van Dorn compatible with Brooklyn (also Manhattan elevated cars.  For some years, starting 194 or 1905 befire WWI LIRR Gibbs cars ran opposite BRT 13's in Rockaway Park - Williamsburg Bridge - Essex & Delancy and then Chambers Street Joint LIRR - BRT service.

[daveklepper]

These two photos are also fro Knieling's 1948 LIRR fantrip with the visit to Sunnyside Yard. (See Classic Trains Sunnyside Yard visit thread.)  But placing them on this thread  is possibly more appropriate.  They show the very first production steel railroad cars, the George Gibbs-desgned 1904-5 Long Island Rilroad's first MU electric cars.  The body was a close copy of Gibb's first IRT steel subway cards.  The latter later had center doors added with "fishbelly" side-sills for strebgth compensation, but the LIRR cars were never so modified.

They never were scheduled into Penn Station.  By the time it opened, enough wider and longer MP54s were available.

However, they did operate into Manhattan over the Williamsburg Bridge in a joint service with Brooklyn Rapid Transit opposite BRT's 1300-series composite gate (open-platform) cars.

pc may wish to add comments,

[passengerfan]

The Official Pullman Standard Library a 16 Volume set covers the construction of those cars pretty well. The seven Volume Budd Library also covers American Car & Foundry and St. Louis Cars and gives a good overview of those manufacturers cars. All have car plans of the different cars and the photos show the different construction techniques.

Some of the Pullman Standard Library books are no longer available but there is enough information in those that are available to answer most questions one would have.

Al - in - Stockton

[erikem]

daveklepper

White (forget his first name) wrote an excellent and large and well-illustrated book "The American Railroad Passenger Car" that discussed the history and the devlopment up to the development of the Amfleet and Metro North and LLIRR commuter cars, with good discussion of the transition from wood to steel, introduction of vestbules, etc.  Wish I still had that book with me!

The author's full name was John H. White and I heartily agree with Dave about the quality of the book. The book was re-published in 1985 as a two volume softbound set, volume 1 in my collection was from the 1988 third printing and volume two was from the 1991 fourth printing.

- Erik

P.S. Kratville's Union Pacific Streamliners goes into a good bit of detail on the construction of the UP's early streamliners and a fair amount of detail on the later ones.

[daveklepper]

White (forget his first name) wrote an excellent and large and well-illustrated book "The American Railroad Passenger Car" that discussed the history and the devlopment up to the development of the Amfleet and Metro North and LLIRR commuter cars, with good discussion of the transition from wood to steel, introduction of vestbules, etc.  Wish I still had that book with me!

Wood passengers cars were basiclly a small wood house on a flatcar.

The first steel cars had to change to keep the weight down and were basically gondola cars with the steel sides below the belt rail part of the car structure for rigidity.   George Gibbs

Then almost immiateliy, Stillwell had the entire car side a truss.

Then Budd adopted ariline practice with the whole car a tube.   And this continues to the extent today, even with Superliners and other double-deckers.

[chutton01]

henry6

If you go to a library and discuss what you are looking for with a librarian you will be steered to what you want...if not available in that particular library, then the librarian will help you search elsewhere.  If you are near a college, especially an engineering college but most any college, you will also find great help. 

Heh, I used to work in the college libraries when I was in college &  later grad school. I was thinking after  I posted this that university libraries do have much more in-depth reference material available, but unless you can access your alma-mater or maybe a local community college or engineering society college, your access may be difficult to other college libraries depending on your status (if you are a college student - even as as continuing education program, then it may be easier to get access to other colleges' libraries)
Your local library systems, you may get lucky, but probably not (Considering what I know of the Nassau County Library systems resources, definitely not)
The most common non-railfan magazine I encounter 'out there' is Railway Age, which is not quite as in depth in terms of railroad rolling stock construction as you'd think (they have a web-site, you can check), and the in-house magazines of railroads (Fallen flags such as the NY Searchlight, or not fallen like the Pan Am Clipper) are interesting, and may touch upon what you seek, but are usually not quite detailed (they are after all mostly propaganda streams).

If you don't have much luck web-searching, Instead perhaps your time would be better spent contacting Historic Societies for the railroads that had the passenger cars in question (Amtrak has a historical society too), and railroad museums in your area (often photos, blueprints and shop manuals end up donated to these societies and museums).

Actually, I see that I left a thought unfinished in my first post on this - what is it exactly that you are looking for in terms of passenger car construction - blue-prints and plans of passenger cars? Parts lists for same? Material quantities? Shop manuals? Proprietary construction techniques? The construction process itself (good luck w/ getting a complete documation of that)? Images and video of the construction process?
Narrowing this down (hint, hint) will help you in your search, while just saying 'Yeah, all of that!' tends to lead to, well, FAIL.

[henry6]

If you go to a library and discuss what you are looking for with a librarian you will be steered to what you want...if not available in that particular library, then the librarian will help you search elsewhere.  If you are near a college, especially an engineering college but most any college, you will also find great help.  Magazine articles are good...again your libraries will help; don't just look at fan mags, either as there are several professional one's out there, too. .  Internet sources, Gooogle, Bing, Ask, whatever, and you might get anwers, even the one's you are looking for.  There are lots of books on railroads, railroading, railroad equipment, etc. that are not fan oriented.  Just got to look in the right places.  And the right place to start is the library.  All right, the internet.  You started right here.  ANd you are being directed to another site...the library, great store house of information and help.

[chutton01]

henry6

Best site for learning anything, finding facts and details: your local library.  Under "rairoads"...there are hundreds of books on the subject.

That's not really all that true, even if you live with access to a fairly large system supporting branch interloan. At least in Nassau County, there are indeed dozens of books, but nostly concerned with railroad history. The 'esoteric' railfan type books (which would include construction of passenger cars) are simply not there, unless somebody donated one to a local branch.

Magazines articles would be a better bet, again especially railfan-specific types with dedicated articles, but hunting down these might be a bit tough.

BTW, are you looking for construction diagrams? 

So it's the web for you, time to start search for those articles on line.
Passenger Car construction (- automobile), Budd Red Lion plant, Horizon, Viewliner, rebuilts, Museum sites which may cover

Here's a start, found via a Google Book search on Budd Red Lion, discusses among many other things the Budd construction line, and shows several images of the Construction line, testing facilities, and (most important for Budd at least) the 'draw bench' roller mill for creating the famed Budd corrugated sides.

Hopefully others will chime in with lots of (more detailed) info.

 

[henry6]

Best site for learning anything, finding facts and details: your local library.  Under "rairoads"...there are hundreds of books on the subject.

 

[EightNSand]

Any good sites out there that give a detailed overview of how passenger rail cars are constructed? Would prefer something modern, but history wouldn't hurt...

8 n' Sand