- This topic is empty.
-
From Yahoo Groups September 2015
I’m mystified by this coach — why would coach windows be spaced so far apart? Was this car converted from a sleeper?
Tim O’Connor
Yes, that’s correct. But, the number would actually be 407. The 14-2-1 sleepers were converted first, then a few of the 14-4 cars. After the first few, the later ones had new windows put in, which resulted in there being more windows than a normal coach. I believe Car Names, Numbers and Consists has the details.Next question — where’d you find this? Jim Parker certainly got around — it’d be nice if there are other photos of the MoPac coachyard from the same era. I’d especially like to see that diner-lounge with the gray pier panel just peeking out from under the bridge.
Ron Merrick
Ron, I’m on the mailing list for James Parker, and yes he sent a whole batch
of Missouri Pacific photos in the last few weeks — More than a hundred photos
including MANY shots of cars in the St Louis coach yard circa 1965, and a
number of other passenger train photos, lots of freight cars, diesels, cabooses …When they stop coming I can batch them up into a Zip file and share them with you via Dropbox. Just poke me in a couple of weeks to jog my memory.
Tim O’Connor
I’ve always been curious. I know MoPac didn’t need the sleepers any more but why were they spending money converting them to coaches? With discontinuances would there have not been enough coaches available already for what trains remained? Were the coaches they had so beat up they needed new? Did they have a market to sell the coaches they had and to keep employees busy and employed, they did all these conversions? Perhaps union agreements to keep workers busy?I know they rehabbed and painted cars that were being sold to Mexico. As a teenager I’d see them making their last trip east thru Kirkwood before presumably heading south to Mexico.
Thankx.
Cliff Kierstead
MP 13 UP Jeff City Sub
Kirkwood MO
Good question, and I don’t have a good answer! From the information published by David Randall, it appears all the original coached remained in service until 1971. The sleepers were converted in 1964-1966, and they were retired in 1971.Remember, too, the entire fleet was not replaced in 1948, just the Texas Eagles. Secondary trains relied on modernized heavyweight cars. Those cars were retired and replaced by newer lightweight cars as the years passed.
The original coaches were not high capacity, the rebuilt sleepers seated 76. The were as odd on the interior as they retained their original window configuration. Many seats did not even have a window. But, as I frequently observed, were preferred by some customers who didn’t like the glare.
Dick Ryker
I can only make assumptions.In the early 60s, MoPac was also buying coaches as well as converting them from sleepers. They bought the Pullman-Standard cars from Maine, and one E unit, and bought the four parlor cars from C&O. So the traffic was there. The secondary trains that had been discontinued in 1958 and 1960 only carried a couple of cars anyway, so the demand didn’t drop as fast as perhaps management would have liked. The heavyweight cars already in service were probably considered to have reached the end of their useful life, and since the company had been in bankruptcy until 1956, that was another constraint on buying new cars from the builders.
It seems likely that rail passenger traffic in the east was falling off faster than it was in the midwest and west, hence the availability of cars on the secondary market. It’s also possible that, when the Eagle cars were ordered, they bought too many sleepers and the ones they bought turned out not to fit the demand as it evolved (too many roomettes, not enough bedrooms), hence the leasing out of sleepers.
The repainting of passenger equipment starting in 1961 was also part of a general refurbishment, so perhaps the intent was to make one last try and make the equipment they had last as long as the traffic would bear. Only later would management start working on methods to actively discourage the traffic.
Ron Merrick
The only Eagle I ever rode (St Louis to Longview TX) in 1968 was packed
and was a substantial train — at least 12 cars. We were late leaving due
to the late arrival of the GM&O Abraham Lincoln from Chicago — there were
200+ passengers that transferred to the Eagle! There was only one small
diner for that whole crowd — I remember we (my sister and I) sat in a
small waiting area inside the car until there was a table. I had Southern
fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy.
Tim O’Connor
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
