MPX 3383

[benjamintickell53]

from Yahoo Mopac Group, January 2015

Anyone have details on this car?
http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=83507
Thanks,
Randy Keller

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It is probably one of dozens of 10-section sleepers MoPac bought from Pullman shortly after WWII. I doubt that it was a car that ran in revenue service on the MoPac. However, I have not seen a list of those cars and their conversion to MOW service.
Dick Ryker

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Most of the Pullman cars purchased by MoPac for non-revenue use were tourist sleepers purchased in three groups, the first in 1948 and the second in 1950, and the third in 1953. These cars were “old” at the time of purchase, probably at least 40 years since their original construction. Many if not most of them did not have air-conditioning.

The car in question, MPX 3383, seems to be a more modern car. Can someone more conversant with heavyweight car window arrangements offer a guess as to its original configuration? For the car to still be in service in the 1980s, wouldn’t it be more likely to have been one of the more modern heavyweight sleepers that saw revenue service into the mid-1950s?

On the Rock Island, the chief mechanical officer published a list yearly or as needed, listing all of the maintenance of way equipment and the original road number of equipment converted to M/W use. Did MP produce any similar document?
Bill Pollard

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My opinion is that this is a 10-1-2, room side.

I’ve seen at least one other converted sleeper with that square vent, maybe 12″ or so square. I’d call it a ‘dryer vent’ for lack of a better name, having about three louvers. Anybody’s guess as to what it was venting, but probably not a dryer. If these cars were intended to be stationary while occupied, they could have had ordinary 110v appliances but only the diagram could answer that conclusively.

In 1968, the block of numbers including X3383 is a very large group listed as a total of 269 cars. They are identified as ‘Boarding’ cars. And, I have never seen a list of conversions from revenue car numbers to non-rev. The diagrams would have had that, at least.

Because there is no skirting on this car, I am inclined to guess it’s not one of the cars upgraded for Mopac’s equivalent of betterment sleepers. There were several Lake series cars bought by MoPac after the divestiture, but I don’t think they lasted in Pullman service all that long. The Pullman project database would have more to say about those.

That’s about all I can think of without going out farther on a limb than I have already.
Ron Merrick

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Bill,
Didn’t the MoPac also purchase some of the later built steel parlor cars that may have been used during the War as coaches. The Texas State RR converted one ( X40–) to an open car and I also recovered some parts including brass sash from one before it was scrapped at Intercontinental Steel in Houston circa 1978.
I recall several parlor cars listed in one of Wayner’s books as going to MoPac.
Bob Sherwood

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Bob, Norm and all,
Bill Pollard and I published a group of articles in the Spring 2012 Eagle covering the history of the 17 parlor cars MoPac purchased from Pullman in 1941. These cars were first coaches, then rebuilt to mail storage cars in the early 50s. A few of the cars were rebuilt as instruction cars.

The article had a list of the Parlor cars by name and their subsequent numbering and use on the MoPac.

I don’t know of any other tables that list Pullman to MoPac numbers. Some later cars purchased from Pullman were converted to storage cars upon delivery. You might be able to find these cars in the passenger car diagram book.

I have not seen (and am not aware) of an equipment book that would show rebuilding of other Pullman cars for MoPac MOW service. (It would be great to find one!)
Dick Ryker

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