Baggage Cars

Well done!

What is a celestial roof? I know clear story and round or arch roof but not celestial. Curiosity overwhelms me.

Thanks, George Lasley

Great thread Ron.  I developed an interest in mail trains watching youtube films of them. I have a train that has in this order an MTH RPO, a K-Line RPO, 2 Weaver B60s and a K-line B70. The extra RPO was rare but perhaps for drop of to be added to a different train scheduled for a different destination. I the pull the train with a K-line K4. One of my favorite trains to run. 

If you model Pennsy (if not, why not? ) mail trains are a way to use your S-2 or T-1 along with diesels up to 1951 or so.

Great subject Ron. I picked this up at a recent show for a staggering $5 because the seller just wanted the trucks.Is a true model, or just a Lionel fantasy?

I have a fleet of prairie to Rockies roadname  RPO's, with a couple more 3rd Rail ones coming.. what do l need Pa. ones for? 

Steamer posted:

Great subject Ron. I picked this up at a recent show for a staggering $5 because the seller just wanted the trucks.Is a true model, or just a Lionel fantasy?

Dave,

Went through my books and this car actually matches pretty close a B74a.  That was a horse express car which has the two different sized doors, larger one on the right like yours, clerestory roof, and no end doors like other B74s.  So run it as your horse express car.

Thanks Ron...maybe I can lease it to Mitch as a Gi raff express car...

colorado hirailer posted:

I have a fleet of prairie to Rockies roadname  RPO's, with a couple more 3rd Rail ones coming.. what do l need Pa. ones for? 

I started this topic to be about baggage cars in general (not RPOs, that is to be another topic someday).  I started with the PRR B60 because I have a lot of info on that car.  Let us see some of your railroad fleet's baggage cars that represent real cars.  Plus provide some history if you have it.  For example, I would like to know more about the history of Lionel's new NYC cars.

I was hoping some other forum members would talk about their road’s baggage cars, but so far this is a PRR topic.  Hopefully that will change.

NOTE: Post initially identified car as K-Line.  It is a Williams and post has been updated to correct to Williams.  

This time I’m looking at the B70 baggage car and what available models are out there.  I hope to cover the various B70a/B70b horse and scenery cars in the next installment.

The B70 is an easy car to discuss.  There were only 55 of them (one source shows 60), and all of them were converted from M70/BM70 baggage-mail cars in 1938.  All B70s had the clerestory roof, and like the B60 baggage cars, they all had slotted windows when first built and then got the round windows in the 1940s.  The only accurate model of a B70 that I know of is Golden Gate Depot’s plastic B70 with round windows.  There may be a brass model out there, but I have not seen one.

The old Williams and MTH 70’ heavyweight baggage cars look like they used the same mold and are pretty close to a B70, just a bit short.  Unfortunately, the Williams does not come with lens in the portholes.  I would not run these cars with the GGD car because of the length difference, but by themselves they can easily pass as a B70.

Here is the MTH car

Here is the Williams car.

Here is a photo showing the length difference between the GGD car in back and the MTH car.

The Williams (left) and MTH cars would go very good with 18" passenger cars.

Here are all three cars with the GGD car in front and the MTH on the right.  Note the color differences.

Lionel’s and K-Line's baggage cars are similar and may share the same mold.  However, their door placement, door size, and window arrangement are too different from a B70 to be acceptable.

Ron,  I don't now the history of Santa Fe baggage cars but will share pictures of mine and a friend's in Colorado.  John in Lansing, ILL

GGD still in the box

K-Line as it left the factory

K-Line repainted with messenger window and light weathering

with lights on.

K-Line 1821 as it left the factory but after a messenger window had been cut.

MTH fantasy baggage car.

MTH 1725

MTH 1821

From Jerry Williams' first five car heavyweight Pullman set with added logos and interior crates.

American Standard 60' kit assembled, painted and detailed by T. Nelms

American Standard fish belly Santa Fe heavyweight baggage car

Santa Fe horse car, note full door end.

Repainted cars flank 1821 as it came from the factory.

GGD Santa Fe 

GGD T&P

William 17" and GGD T&P

John

John,

Your Santa Fe cars look great.  I really like your messenger car and the other's you repainted.  Nice work.

The SF horse car looks very similar to one of Pennsy's horse cars; wonder if they were made in the same shop.

Seeing the photo of your K-Line car (and nicely detailed Williams) reminded me that the car in my post was a Williams, not K-Line.  Corrected it.

CAPPilot posted:

How about some history of your favorite road’s baggage cars?

 

I am working on a Class BN car as this is what appears to be depicted in the post cards of the CVRR train crossing the river into Harrisburg.

Plans and information for PRR baggage cars are available:

http://prr.railfan.net/diagram...gg&sz=sm&fr=

An interesting kitbashing award in this month's MRC is concerned with the lesser known PRR X42.  Basically it's a 60ft boxcar with it's 4 doors spaced like that of a common baggage car and used for transporting bags of mail.  Pennsy only built 10 of them in 1950.  I may just follow the authors lead and kitbash me one of these head end oddities out of 2 boxcars.

Bruce

brwebster posted:

An interesting kitbashing award in this month's MRC is concerned with the lesser known PRR X42.  Basically it's a 60ft boxcar with it's 4 doors spaced like that of a common baggage car and used for transporting bags of mail.  Pennsy only built 10 of them in 1950.  I may just follow the authors lead and kitbash me one of these head end oddities out of 2 boxcars.

Bruce

pics please! love to see your project when you start.

Great seeing it in O....and in brass no less!   Much easier to appreciate the details in O rather than N in the kitbash award. Thanks, Rattler

I have a few plastic boxcar bodies in the scraps drawer....even have a nice set of express trucks.  As with a million other model railroad brainstorms, it's finding the time to implement them .   Soon, I hope.

Bruce

Has the B60 cars in the latest two Lionel catalogs been produced and delivered?   

Catalog states length at 11 1/4-inches.  A B60 is around 55-feet.  So that would make a scale car at just over 14-inches from coupler to coupler.

Anybody know for sure/

My books show the B60b to be 63' long (not including couplers), or in O gauge 15.75"".  My Weaver B60b, which Lionel says it used this mold for their car, is 15.375".  From my data and rough measurement the Weaver car is a little over 1/4", or scale 1', short.  You may want to contact Lionel about their description of this car considering the other mistakes in the catalog.

Ron, I stand corrected.  Must have been thinking about B50's when I hastily pounded out earlier note.  So yes they should be even longer as you point out in the 15/16-inch range.

Will have to sound Lionel a note to night.

Ron

@CAPPilot posted:

There has been a lot posted concerning the Weaver/Lionel B60 baggage car, but it is scattered over several topics.  Also, there is not a lot of discussion on baggage cars from other railroads.  So, I thought it would be fun to have a topic just on baggage cars and available models of them. Since I know a (very) little about PRR’s baggage cars, I thought I’d start this topic with the B60.  I’m working on B70 history . . . . "

Some how I did something wrong on my recent reply. This is better, I hope.

CAPPilot: I'm working on a 18 inch K-line baggage car and would like to modify the sides. As you know the K-line cars have rows of verticle rivets evry half inch or so. The actual 70 foot PRR baggage cars had borders of 3 row rivets that were separated by smooth areas. The distances appear to be the same for each space except for the spaces closest to the doors. The GGD cars in your posts appear to accurately model that detail. It would be helpful to know those distances so I can try to improve the look of my K-line experiment. Many thanks.  

@brwebster posted:

An interesting kitbashing award in this month's MRC is concerned with the lesser known PRR X42.  Basically it's a 60ft boxcar with it's 4 doors spaced like that of a common baggage car and used for transporting bags of mail.  Pennsy only built 10 of them in 1950.  I may just follow the authors lead and kitbash me one of these head end oddities out of 2 boxcars.

Bruce

X-42 as imported by Dick Breglar. If you can find one, the price is north of $400.

Bashed X-42 (two Weaver box cars) along side an American Standard 60' baggage car.

John

Nice work rattler21!

@pennsynut posted:

Some how I did something wrong on my recent reply. This is better, I hope.

CAPPilot: I'm working on a 18 inch K-line baggage car and would like to modify the sides. As you know the K-line cars have rows of verticle rivets evry half inch or so. The actual 70 foot PRR baggage cars had borders of 3 row rivets that were separated by smooth areas. The distances appear to be the same for each space except for the spaces closest to the doors. The GGD cars in your posts appear to accurately model that detail. It would be helpful to know those distances so I can try to improve the look of my K-line experiment. Many thanks.  

 

I'll take some pictures of the GGD car with a ruler in front of it.  The MTH PRR baggage car is actually much closer to the prototype, especially if you can find the ones with the round windows.

@Steamer posted:

Thanks Ron...maybe I can lease it to Mitch as a Gi raff express car...

That's funny!    Actually, that's what the hobby needs, a scale giraffe car. 

I keep asking John when they're going to show up at Strasburg.  

George

Ron,

Thank for the thread and the history lesson!  I had never seen a B60a.

George

Many thanks CAPPilot. Thanks again for this informative thread and all the reply posts with photos. 

@pennsynut posted:

CAPPilot: I'm working on a 18 inch K-line baggage car and would like to modify the sides. As you know the K-line cars have rows of verticle rivets evry half inch or so. The actual 70 foot PRR baggage cars had borders of 3 row rivets that were separated by smooth areas. The distances appear to be the same for each space except for the spaces closest to the doors. The GGD cars in your posts appear to accurately model that detail. It would be helpful to know those distances so I can try to improve the look of my K-line experiment. Many thanks.

Here are some pictures of my GGD baggage and my MTH baggage.  As stated above, the MTH car looks like it used the same mold as the Williams car.

The GGD and MTH/Willaims cars model the PRR B70, but the GGD car is a bit longer with better rivet detail.  The roof of the GGD car is smoother, which seems to be a better match for the real car.

Here are photos of the GGD car:

Here are photos of the MTH car:

CAPPilot: Thank you very much for taking time to photo your cars and measure them. Your cars look great.

@rattler21 posted:

Bashed X-42 (two Weaver box cars) along side an American Standard 60' baggage car.

John

John,

I really like what you did with this car.  Nice work.

Pennsy baggage cars can be used for southeast modelers of the ACL, SAL and Southern as well. Pennsy (and New Haven) baggage cars were regularly used for express and other shipments from Boston and New York to points south, especially on the catch-all trains hitting most stops through VA, NC and SC. 

I like to model the ACL, SAL and Southern in O and HO, and finding correct baggage (or RPO) cars is just about non-existent. The Weaver molds that Lionel received and started using for baggage are all Pennsy based cars, from what I can tell. They all ride on 4-wheel trucks, which is not correct for many southeast roads which used 6-wheel trucks. Closest I can find and use as a starting point are the Atlas Trainman cars, but undecorated are hard to find. The ACL also rebuilt some cars in the 1940s/50s, replacing clerestory roofs with turtle-back style, making kitbashing a necessity. 

I do have some information on baggage cars I can share, but don't have the copyright requirements to post photos on this page of various cars. I can post images of models made recently and describe what is wrong and needs to be corrected. I can start with the recent Lionel ACL issues if anyone is interested. 

For those looking at specific roads to model, regardless of location, I would seriously invest in the Morning Sun series of Freight and Passenger images, since they are a good basic source to get started. 

If an RPO page gets started, I have some good information to place there as well for souteastern roads.

Here is a great site to find photos of baggage, RPO and many other passenger cars on one site. They have created a "catch-all" site of images from most major railroads across the U.S.

http://passcarphotos.rypn.org/

Another for both locomotives, freight and passenger is the fallen flags site:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/

Although debatable, I believe this post is appropriate to continue discussions here. The new horse car in Lionel's 2022 catalog  triggered my interest in variations of PRR baggage cars, in particular, the B70a theater. The new Lionel horse car in different road names is generic. Most of the photos of prr horse (b74a) cars I have found have three separate doorways on the side, but there may be two doorway cars I have not seen. What interested me about the Lionel car is that appears to share a feature common with some prr b70a cars, a large end door. The roof and the twin door dimensions are not accurate for a prr b70a project. However, some credit is due Lionel for trying to make a generic verion. I consulted the "passcarphotos" site and found several variations in doorways in the prr mail/baggage cars and repurposing.

Edit: PRR nos. 6060, 6068, 6069, 6072, 6077, 6082, 6089 are an example.

A true theater or horse car would be great.

Here is an interior view of an Amtrak baggage car:

I have no idea of its heritage. I had the last berth in the sleeper closest to the baggage car and on my way back from the diner I saw that the vestibule doors were open so I got my camera and stuck the lens in the door way. Not very well lit, that is for sure.

Note that this was on one of the Silver Service Florida trains, probably the Star as it gave four more hours of train riding time and an extra meal in the diner! All for the same fare as the Meteor.

@pennsynut posted:

...The new Lionel horse car in different road names is generic. Most of the photos of prr horse (b74a) cars I have found have three separate doorways on the side, but there may be two doorway cars I have not seen....

You are correct that Pennsy's horse cars have three doors.  If you think about it, it makes since on how they would load the horses.  Also, a quick search for horse cars in general shows the more modern ones all have three doors, so Lionel's generic horse car really isn't represented of most horse cars.

@pennsynut posted:

...What interested me about the Lionel car is that appears to share a feature common with some prr b70a cars, a large end door. The roof and the twin door dimensions are not accurate for a prr b70a project. ...

However, your observation that the Lionel car is close to a Pennsy B70a scenery car is a good one.  A repaint to a scenery car (and get rid of those green trucks) might be a good project.

Reading this thread for the first time and glad someone brought it back to the front page.  I enjoy baggage cars quite a bit and have at least 30 different baggage cars from many railroads both heavyweight and streamlined.  Head end cars fascinate me and when you look at historical photos of trains mid 20th century there were a lot of baggage cars up front in most secondary passenger trains.  I've been meaning to get them all photographed. 

Wonderfully interesting topic Ron!  Thanks for creating this thread!

I have several baggage cars in several road names on my Free State Junction Railway .... Pennsy, B&O, Western Maryland, Reading, N&W.  

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's comments in this thread.  I've learned a lot!   I've always enjoyed viewing headend equipment on passenger trains and find this equipment quite intriguing, especially the baggage cars.   I loved watching Pennsy passenger trains whiz by on the straightaway through Arbutus, Md. during the 1960s when I was a kid.  The headend equipment always caught my fancy.  

This morning on my way out of Baltimore, this thread inspired me to stop by the B&O Museum and snap a photo of the baggage car that carried President Ike Eisenhower to his final resting place in his home state of Kansas.  The bottom photo tells the story.  Does anyone know if this car exists in model form for O gauge/scale?

Trumptrain: Can't find o scale model of exact on web research.  But "wheelsotime.com"  indicates pictured car is 70ft, arch roof car. The doors appear to be proportionally close the baggage doors on lionel or k-line 18 inch cars. However, the roofs and door locations of lionel and k-line versions differ from the c&o. Cheers

Edit: The faded shadows of coach car windows artfully record a part the car's history.