Chapel Cars: a restored 1898 example

Well, if you would like to know what it was to work on board one of those cars you might want to read:

A Church on Wheels (or 10 years on a chapel car) - Rev C.H. Rust - 1905

I found it to be very interesting.

I HAD heard of them, and seen a couple of photos, but did not know any still existed or who actually owned and operated them.  "Salvation on Wheels" followed the "Hellonwheels" camps of parasites that followed the railroad construction camps?  Very interested to learn one was used at Thurmond, which was famous for a nonstop card game that went on for decades along the C&O.

Here's a link to Google's scanned version of "A Church on Wheels".  I think I've just found my summer vacation reading ... 

A Church on Wheels download from Google

Yes, Thurmond and Boston, too.  On one of the museum's pages in my initial post, you can get a PDF log of the car's known activity.  The log shows the various roads that carried the car.  For an appearance at the World's Fair it was transported by GOVT.  Apparently, the source for this log was a modern book written specifically about chapel cars.

TRRR 

And here's an online version of the newer but now also out of print book, "Bound for Glory", by Wilma and Norman Taylor.  Each car chapter also includes a link to a floor plan:

http://www.chapelcars.com/online_book/

Tomlinson Run Railroad

TomlinsonRunRR posted:

Then, Lo and Behold!  In my research, I found that an 1898 Barney & Smith chapel car was actually converted into a roadside diner and then eventually made its way to the Northeast Railway Museum in Washington state for restoration.  Here's a link dedicated just to car #5, the Messinger of Peace:

 http://www.messengerofpeace.org/A.php

One of the links on the left-hand side includes a floor plan and there are various stories about living and working in the car.

Enjoy,

Tomlinson Run Railroad

P.S. - Much more later on my diner-trolley-diner research. Hopefully, I can post something before grad school starts up again and I have to do "real" research again! 

 

Looks like everything stops at 2012? Have they done more since?

I was thinking of commenting that Walther's made O scale passenger car kits, including for horse cars, but not chapel cars...but I am not sure, for somewhere in my memory I seem to remember a model chapel car...kit, brass, HO....??  It seems the denominations were not too varied in the real cars...no short cabooses for store front churches?

colorado hirailer posted:

I was thinking of commenting that Walther's made O scale passenger car kits, including for horse cars, but not chapel cars...but I am not sure, for somewhere in my memory I seem to remember a model chapel car...kit, brass, HO....??  It seems the denominations were not too varied in the real cars...no short cabooses for store front churches?

LaBelle makes wood Chapel car kits

I was only vaguely aware of these.  With all the information posted I am finding them very intriguing.  My thanks to all who have added information on this thread, I have a lot to read now.

BobbyD, yes, it looks like the museum got a bundle of restoration funding around 2011 and created a website documenting it.  I tried looking at the museum web site to see whether it was completed but didn't get far.  Thanks for posting the information about the LaBelle models.  In my quick search, it looked like they were HO, but a passenger model might be adaptable for O.  The Russian Orthodox cars were the most elaborate regarding visible outside detail but they were in Siberia. Fortunately, well out of my modeling range.

TexasSP, it is an interesting topic.  I'm partial to modeling "operations" and this type of car would add a whole different dimension -- so to speak. :-}  (I'd have to start with a saloon car on a siding and then clean up the neighborhood with a chapel car.  There could be relapses ... and then the good fight resumes!  Imagine adding a sound car with recorded era-appropriate organ music, singing, and preaching.)

I'm headed to Essex, CT soon to ride some trains and, like you, I now have lots of chapel car background reading to fill in the rest of the day.  It was good of Mrs. Taylor to post their book online and a nice tribute to her husband. 

Tomlinson Run RR

 Updated: to fix silly error, Russian not Greek Orthodox. Doh!

TomlinsonRunRR posted:

BobbyD, yes, it looks like the museum got a bundle of restoration funding around 2011 and created a website documenting it.  I tried looking at the museum web site to see whether it was completed but didn't get far.  Thanks for posting the information about the LaBelle models.  In my quick search, it looked like they were HO, but a passenger model might be adaptable for O.  The Greek Orthodox cars were the most elaborate regarding visible outside detail but they were in Siberia. Fortunately, well out of my modeling range.

Tomlinson Run RR

 

A call to LaBelle might get you an "O" kit, they have the plans!

The Baptists are, or were, big on revivals, in which a number of people would be brought into the church at once.  I was a spectator at one full immersion Baptist baptism of a group in a muddy creek, in my youth.  I wonder if the Messenger of Peace was involved in any revivals with attending baptisms.  It doesn't sound like that water closet was up to the task, so that makes me wonder if they ran the car out to a creek or pond in a switching move?  I can visualize all kinds of scenes to model from that thought.  Tap, tap, tap.  The station  agent in Lost Cause sends out a message:  "Clear the line between passing sidings west of Lost Cause and east of Dead Frog Creek.  #90 is on line with Car #5,  Await orders."

I was sure I had read an article on the surviving chapel cars and I found it. St. Paul is owned by a private collector and Grace is on display in Greenlake, Wisconsin.  Youtube has a video of the car.  There are also parts and pieces of some of the other cars and, as noted there is the effort to restore the Messenger of Peace.

Robert,

Thanks for the updates on other cars and for mentioning youtube.  Here's a link to a different video than the one you mentioned. It's an overview of chapel cars but the general RR footage used as a background to the narrative is really nice and of excellent quality.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9wJlxBaXp04

Colorado Highrailer,

You bring up an interesting logistical point for the full emersion baptism as the Baptists seemed to have the most chapel cars.  Of course railroad lines often follow water routes as a practical engineering measure.  

In the above link, there's a photo of a meeting.  In true evangelical-revival style, they have moved the organ outdoors and there appears to be quite a gathering. I've been pondering the different chapel car floor plans from the vantage point of a minister and a home on wheels, and can see the benefit of using outdoor space whenever possible.

Tomlinson Run Railroad

TomlinsonRunRR posted:

And here's an online version of the newer but now also out of print book, "Bound for Glory", by Wilma and Norman Taylor.  Each car chapter also includes a link to a floor plan:

http://www.chapelcars.com/online_book/

Tomlinson Run Railroad

 

I've got "This Train is Bound for Glory" in hardbound and it's an excellent read.  The authors showed reverence for the teachings of each of the faiths that had chapel cars and the amount of research and footnoting show that the authors did their research well.

The fact that the owners of the copyright loaded the book on the internet for free shows where their hearts and souls are.  

It is not a chapel car but another relevant existing and restored car that you c an visit is the Funeral car Descanso that is at the Organge Empire Museum in Perris CA. It was a trolley car that was converted to a hearse on rails. 

Interesting.  There are a couple of youtube "tours" of the funeral trolley at EOM that describe the separate sections for the coffin, immediate family, and other mourners.  

The narrators said that the funeral trolleys were replaced by diesel hearses, which in a way isn't quite accurate. An automobile hearse was and remains little different than an earlier horse-drawn hearse.  But a trolley by its nature and design could transport the deceased and the whole party of mourners.  That's a very different experience, it would seem.  It's more likely that the automobile in general was responsible.

For some odd reason this function also made me think of trolley parks. Both examples are of trolley lines or spurs based on a destination/activity that got people in cities from one location to another (park vs. cemetery).  But the special division of the interior space of the funeral trolley sets it off like architecture -- that is, with areas for specific functions in a way that was comparable to the chapel cars. The furniture design (seats) even varied by section.  Also, in this case and unlike trolley park trolleys, all the riders had a shared connection through the deceased whether or not they actually knew one another.  

My undergraduate thesis was on the effects of urbanization on cemeteries in a particular city -- the same one where the first chapel car was shown, in fact.  As the city grew, its cemeteries moved to the outskirts and were themselves set up like little cities with streets and "houses" and became "park-like" destinations.  So, I wonder how widespread funeral trolleys were or whether they were a regional thing?

Thanks for sharing this very interesting and definitely relevant use, Silver Lake!

TRRR

I have a book here somewhere with a photo of a gas electric trailer funeral car in Mexico, but......can't find the book quickly.  It is a short little car...                         Several cemeteries, including one not far from here, that I have seen,  have had buildings out front that look like small railroad stations, that I assume are for trolley lines long gone.   I have read that many small town trolley lines were laid out to or ended at the cemetery.