I know this isn't really an SCL question, but there are so many good people here I'm sure I'll get an answer. I was at my favorite train watching spot saturday and what should come down the track but two nicely painted F40's with a string of CSX blue Office cars, all with different names. Now my question may actually be somewhat SCL related. Does anyone know if those cars are actually old SCL pasenger cars, and if so what type were they and are any models available? I thought it might be really neat to build a model of it, now that Trainline has introduced the locomotives. Thanks

-- John Buckley (johnbuckley@juno.com), September 11, 2000

Answers

Dick,

Wow !! Great information. That really does help a lot. Much thanks.

John

-- John Buckley (johnbuckley@juno.com), September 13, 2000.

To answer all your questions will take alot of research but as one who just rode a CSX Operation Lifesaver, I will share with you what I know. I rode from Selkirk to Springfield MA and back. All the cars carry six figure numeric ID #'s. Heavyweight Observation ex ACL 308 "Florida" is 449308. 994003 - heavyweight Observation Car "Philadelphia" ex CR 3 994008 - Sleeper "Mississippi" ex CR 8 994009 - Theater car "Massachusetts" ex CR #9 994010 - heavyweight Observation "?" ex CR 10 ex NYC 994011 - Sleeper "Youngstown" ex CR 11 994012 - Conference "Michigan" ex CR 12 994300 - heavvyweight Observation "North Carolina" ex ACL 300 994302 - Track Geometry Car ex Chessie 994307 - heavyweight Observation "Washington" 994308 - heavyweight Observation "Florida" ex ACL 308 994315 - conference car "Indiana" 994317 - heavyweight Observation "Baltimore" 994318 - theater car "Georgia" ex ACL 994319 - diner/kitchen "Greenbrier" 994350 - diner/kitchen "Illinois" 994362 - power car "Louisiana" 994363 - power car "Kentucky" 9943?? - heavyweight Observation "West Virginia" 994??? - sleeper "Miami Beach" 994??? - "Ohio" 994??? - "Alabama"

You can find these cars in Baltimore, Philadelphia, other places as well. That is 21 cars and I don't know if I have them all. Hope this is helpful to you.

There are four other cars from the C&O and B&O at the Greenbrier in West Virginia.

-- Dick Kearns (rhenryk3@att.net), September 12, 2000.

WWW.egroups has a CSX railfans site that may be able to help answer this question. www.egroups.com/message/CSXrailfans.

-- Randall Bass (Bellbluffcamp@aol.com), September 11, 2000.

This is kinda off topic, but is in reguards to the CSX business train... I know the F-units (116, 117, 118) that Seaboard used and CSX used for a while were retired. Also i know CSX got at least one of the E8 units that Conrail used in the merger... I would like to have seen CSX keep the E and F units, instead of the ex-amtrak F40's they are using now... why were these units retired and not saved? and the E and F units that were retired have they been scrapped? It would be a shame, because these units were in good physical (if not mechanical) shape...

-- troy nolen (kirkwood@gdn.net), September 11, 2000.

Well that kind of depends on whats available. I'm not very good at scratchbuilding a passenger car so I'd have to use an existing car and then add or take away detail parts to match the Office car as it is. This is new territory for me, so I'm not exactly sure if I am asking the right questions to get the right answers. I guess the first order of business would be to get the complete roster of the current Office cars as they exist now, then find out what the car was before it was made into an Office car. Then try and determine if there is a model currently available of that particular style of car.

-- John Buckley (johnbuckley@juno.com), September 11, 2000.

Which cars do you want to model.

-- Gary Riccio (g.riccio@worldnet.att.net), September 11, 2000.

Thanks Gary,

So where might I find some information on the cars? Any ideas there? I'd like to be able to find out what type they were, and if any models would be available that I could repaint and reletter. I live just a few miles from the storage tracks in Jacksonville where they keep the cars so getting lots of pictures won't be a problem. Saturday was the first time I have ever actually seen them in motion with the F40's so that was pretty neat.

Thanks again John

-- John Buckley (johnbuckley@juno.com), September 11, 2000.

Most of the office car fleet is made up of cars the came from all the predecessor roads that make up CSX (ACL,B&O,C&O,SAL and now cars from CR), some of them were SCL office cars but they are not like regular passenger cars because they had different interior and window arrangements.

-- Gary Riccio (g.riccio@worldnet.att.net), September 11, 2000.