History of the "Silver Holley" passenger car

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On the 19th of December in Daytona Beach, FL, I was held up in a business park across from the Speedway as a specially trailer passenger car slowly made its way down "Fentress Rd." It was an aluminium circa late '40s-50s?' car looking to be a club car or observation? (Don't really know my cars) with the side name of "Silver Holley." The car had its undercarrage removed and place on a specially made truss assemblies located fore and aft. I kick myself because of the notion I had that morning to carry a camera with me (I thought why?) and didn't. Does anyone know anything about this car?

-- Tom Kopke (catdriver@catdriver.com), December 21, 2000

Answers

Must have had a Senior moment there yesterday when I was sure that the Silver Holley was a rebuild. But-it was originally built as C&O Dome Observation Coach 1875 by Budd Co. for the ill fated never to be run Chessie. It was sold to the Denver Rio Grande and western in 1950, who added a diaphragm to the round end and then ran this car and its two sisters on the Royal Gorge as well as the Yampa Valley Mail. It was sold to Chapman Root who added 4 bedrooms to the car. Sister cars were sold to Butterworth Tours and Autoliner-renamed Big Ben and Linoma.

I do know that there is a PV out there which was rebuilt as an observation car from a coach-for some reason I was sure that it was the Root owned car. Oh well!

These cars originally had coach seats in the forward portion of the car as well as a lounge area in the observation end. There was a conductor's office under the dome.

Sister dome sleepers were sold to the B&O, were later leased to ACL, then CN, and then were purchased by SCL. So-there is a familial connection here. The same applies to the coaches. Both SAL and ACL purchased coaches from the Chessie fleet, and ACL also purchased the twin unit diners. More about these cars in a future article which is 1/4 written and is gathering dust in the innards of my PC.

-- Michael W. Savchak (Savchak @MNR.org), July 10, 2001.


Silver Holley was never used as a carname by the CB&Q, RG&W, WP. This car is an ex California Zephyr(?) car converted to an observation car after it was sold(I believe by the WP). Somewhere I have the particulars on the history of this car at home. If and when I find it, I will post on the web site.

-- Michael W. Savchak (Savchak @MNR.org), July 09, 2001.

While I was spending the Christmas holiday with the parental units near Orlando, the local nightly news broadcast footage of the SILVER HOLLY and also a Milwaukee Road "Beaver Tail" observation car (the name of which escapes me) being towed to their new home at the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts & Sciences. A new building is being completed to house the two cars and it appears that visitors may be able to walk through them. The reporter also said the museum plans to have an exhibit dealing with the Florida East Coast RR. Probably best to contact the museum directly for more info.(904-255-0285) HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

-- Bob Venditti (bobvend@bellsouth.net), December 26, 2000.

I think this is the same car that sat at Sanford for many years back in the seventies.I have been gone from Sanford for about 20 years and I don't what has happened since then.It was owned by Chapman Root,the owner of the Daytona Beach Coca-Cola Co.

-- J.Oates (jlosal@mindspring.com), December 22, 2000.

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