Coach Yard Cuernavaca was it a parlor-lounge?

[Bud Moss]

I have a model of Cuernavaca 10302 produced by The Coach Yard (file attached). It has a curious box label indicating it was used on the Colorado Eagle. This doesn’t make sense to me. I thought these heavyweight parlor-lounge cars were more likely used on the Texas trains. I’d appreciate any information on this and other cars of the same type.

Thanks,

Jerry Michels

[benjamintickell53]

10301 and 10302 were lounge cars, probably originally for the Sunshine Special. I cannot find any reference that they were ever used regularly in parlor service, and the late John Mills article (Arkansas Railroader) on MP Parlor Car service since the 1930s did not include these cars. 10301 lasted slightly longer than 10302, but they were both off the roster by 1955, possibly due to having steam-ejector air conditioning. In the 1952 ORPTE, they were both listed as 36-seat lounge cars. One source says that these cars were built by Pullman in 1930, if so, could they have been rebuilt to some other use in the early 50s, or were they scrapped?

In this business, never say never, but I am not aware of any heavyweight lounge cars that were ever regularly assigned to the Colorado Eagle. If they were ever used in this service, it would be most interesting to know the details.

Bill Pollard

[peggyrothschild]

Jerry
The only hw passenger cars I ever saw on dispatcher sheets were the Thrifty sleepers. Beautiful model! I never saw one before.

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