Valley Eagle Stateroom Coaches 850-855

[benjamintickell53]

From Mopac Yahoo group, July 2015

Does anyone have knowledge of MoPac selling the Stateroom accommodations on coaches 850-855 that ran on the Valley Eagle? Each section of the train carried two of these cars, but I can’t find any evidence that the private stateroom was ever sold as an accommodation.

The stateroom had the same configuration as on Parlor Observation cars 750-751, that is a bench seat similar to a bedroom and a private toilet.
Dick Ryker

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I looked at my June 1, 1958 public timetable and it only mentions that the Valley Eagle offers coaches with reclining seats. Would the staterooms have been sold as coach seats or parlor seats?
David Shoemaker
Leander TX

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That, David, is the key question.

The Valley Eagle makes its first appearance in the Nov 14, 1948 timetable, but there is no mention of the stateroom. However, I also looked at the Missouri River Eagle. Parlor cars 750-751 certainly had a stateroom that was sold (Harry Truman used it frequently), but the stateroom is not mentioned in the public timetable.
Dick Ryker

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Dick,
Didn’t at least some of the cars come south on the Texas Eagle? I don’t have access to my timetables right now but maybe the stateroom was sold out of St. Louis to ???
Bill Hoss

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Bill,
I don’t think the cars were scheduled on the South Texas Eagle. There were two extra cars available immediately in 1948 because the Nueces Eagle never materialized. So two of the cars went into general service.

I remember riding in one of these cars on #8 north from Little Rock. There was extra room at the “B” end of the car so that the last set of seats could face to the rear and have ample leg room. There were even foot rests mounted to the bulkhead. The windows in the end of the car had been plated over, but the lower round window was still in the door.

The stateroom was at the “A” end of the car. The door was crudely, but clearly marked, “Crew Only” I’m sure the conductor, brakeman and porter enjoyed their private smoking room and private toilet.
Dick Ryker

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Dick,
Do you know if the heavyweight Houston to Brownsville day train before the Valley Eagle offered parlor service?

I do not know a whole lot about how rates for passenger service were set or kept track of, but if the parlor service was new with the Valley Eagle perhaps the MoPac had to ask/tell the Texas Railroad Commission for a parlor car rate in addition to the existing coach rate?

I was over at the Texas State archives looking at the minutes of the Commission from 1941 and they included notices of new/revised freight rates between Texas points, so perhaps passenger rates for new parlor service would be recorded the same way.
David Shoemaker
Leander TX

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David,
I looked the public timetables and cannot find any reference to a drawing room on trains #11/12. Your comment about passenger rates would be a good place to research. Also, I have not read the Kingsville article you described and I’m not sure who in Omaha would have a complete collection.
Dick Ryker

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Dick,
How was the Nueces Eagle service meant to operate? I’ve read David P. Morgan’s explanation from the 1949 Trains Magazine article about the Kingsville Division several times and it has never seemed quite clear.

Best I can figure is that the MP was going to use two sets of equipment, with one departing Corpus in the morning to arrive in time to depart southbound for Brownsville after the arrival of the South Texas Eagle. The second set would depart Brownsville that morning and arrive at Houston to connect with the Northbound departure of the Eagle and then go south to Corpus.

But I can’t figure out why that service would need 6 coaches- I would think there would only be a need for two coaches and the grill coach either between Houston and Corpus or Houston and Brownsville.
David Shoemaker
Leander TX

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Here’s an aerial photo of Brownsville, TX. In the upper right quadrant you can see the Valley Eagle at the depot. The most notable item is that the train is headed by an F3 in freight colors.

You can download a large copy of this file at

http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth354456/m1/1/?q=brownsville

Dick Ryker

[benjamintickell53]

Here are a couple of scans from the August 1948 Railway Age which describes the deluxe stateroom coaches in some detail, but with no mention of the planned usage for the stateroom. It does appear that there was no upper berth, thus no overnight usage contemplated which would have infringed on the uniform Pullman contract, which specified that Pullman had exclusive right to provide overnight sleeper accommodations.

The diagram mentions that the end door had two round windows in it, one at sitting level and one at standing level. On some of those cars, the double window doors survived as long as the car, although I believe that all end windows were plated over by the time I saw the cars in the mid-1960s.

This article does mention that two cars with a grill coach spliced between would be used on a new (unspecified) daylight streamliner, thus eliminating the need to turn the train.

Bill Pollard

[benjamintickell53]

Earlier discussions about these cars suggested that they might have been assigned as the St. Louis – Corpus Christi through coaches in later years. That assertion will need additional research. Through coach service was discontinued in favor of a cross-platform connection in Houston, with last runs of the through cars approximately September 2, 1958. This involved trains 21-22, 121-122, and 321-322.

The first entry for these stateroom cars in the Official Register of Passenger Train Equipment carried no notation other than identifying them as 64-seat StLB&M coaches, the 5 seats in the stateroom (as indicated on car diagram) not being counted towards car capacity reported in the ORPTE. These six cars also had a window on each side of the diaphragm on the blind end of the car, and double porthole windows in the end door, strongly suggesting that some manner of rear car operation was planned when the cars were ordered.

Attached is an article from the November 1948 MP Magazine describing the inauguration of the Valley Eagle. If some sort of innovative parlor seat service was anticipated with these stateroom cars, one would think that it would have been mentioned in the article.

Bill Pollard

[benjamintickell53]

In the 1963 passenger car renumbering, stateroom coaches 850-855 became 494-499. These cars were often seen on trains 7-8, operating between St. Louis and Fort Worth. As Dick Ryker mentions in an earlier post, most of the stateroom doors were crudely marked (black Magic Marker ?) for “Crew Only”. My recollection is that the room was used as the conductor’s office, but I wonder if some other usage had been originally intended, perhaps as dorm space for the grill coach attendant.

Trains 7-8 had an odd arrangement with the grill coach attendant. For a number of years, a grill coach had operated between St. Louis and Fort Worth. Starting in August 1964, a notation appeared in the Official Guide advising that the grill would be closed between Little Rock and Marshall each way. This change possibly reflected the reduction in grill crew from two persons to one. It also meant that the grill was closed for lunch in both directions, with trains 7 and 8 showing a “meal stop” at Little Rock and Texarkana respectively, where station restaurants were available. I assume that this arrangement was so that a single grill attendant could have “off time” per union agreements. Could the assignment of a stateroom coach have initially been intended to provide dorm space for this attendant? My only memories of the grill southbound on #7 from Little Rock was with the attendant sitting at one of the empty tables in the grill car, reading the newspaper at noon, which at the time seemed to illustrate the Jenks approach to passenger service.

Bill Pollard

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