Confused on passenger service

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I would like to model as prototypical as possible Southern railway passenger service. I currently have in my model stock a proto E8/9 no 6912 (black) a E7 2907 (black)and an E6 A/B units numbered 2802 and 2953 (green). I will soon have an E7 2909 I believe. I also have the Ihc corugated side passenger cars (without a black roof) and the Athearn std green passenger cars. I can pick up other passenger cars if I need to. Tell me what to do here. Additional questions are: are the roofs on the corrugated passenger cars suppose to be black? Did the e unit ever pull frieght. Where can I get a souther e-6 A/B units that have the white roofs? (proto 2000). I hope this doesn't create a overload for you. Thanks Steve kennedy

-- Steve kennedy (eak1234@altavista.com), August 25, 2001

Answers

As far as I have seen Southern E-units pulling freight was a rarity. They were used on mixed passenger-mail-piggyback trains, like 5 & 6 and 21 & 22. I know of one instance in 1973 when a 4-unit set of freshly painted green E8's were used on piggyback train 719 (Advance 219 - "the Jet") from Spencer to Atlanta. They were returning off a Kentucky Derby Special. "Big Maxsie" Williams was the engineer, and he mortally took those pigs for a ride.

As for the black roofs on the stainless cars, there is some photo evidence that some received black roofs as soon as the early fifties. Many did not get painted til the late 60's, possibly early 70's.

Ben Lee

-- Ben Lee (Bengineer7@aol.com), August 26, 2001.


Steve--you don't mention which time period you are modeling THe LifeLIke E6A/B units would be accurate up to about 1949/50. After that they and all other passneger unts were repainted in the simplified green scheme, the same as used on freight units which also were repainted green arond that time. Most E-units were rebuilt in the early 1950s with round portholes replacing the square windows, large angled number boards instead of the small streamlined ones, and oil cooler coils on the roofs. Some B-units even got dynamic brakes. If you wnat to really model SOuthern passenger operations what about the passenger FP7s, F3s, GP7s, and RS3s. Most of these were used on secondary trains on branches as well as freight. You have a start with the IHC cars but you can expand your consists with NKP car kits (see their ad in RMC)and Branchline is releasing Southern cars soon. Walthers has some new cars decorated for Southern. Good luck--Larry

-- Larry (ljpuckett@starpower.net), August 26, 2001.

Hayne began painting roofs black in the early 1970's at about the same time they began putting the herald in the window band. They simply got too lazy to keep the stainless roofs clean. Much of the 1941 order for the Tennessean and the Southerner never received the black roof or the herald because it didn't last long enough. There were exceptions. Most if not all of the 14/4 sleepers also never received the herald or the black roof. Most were off the roster or stored by 1970. Southern used its last 14/4 sleeper on Christmas Eve, 1970. To my knowledge, an HO model does not exist that is correct for any Southern Railway passenger car. I may say Southern on the side but the window pattern or manufacturer is incorrect or some other flaw exists. I have not kept up with the model side of railroading for a while so someone correct me if i'm wrong. Someone does make a brass set of the 1941 order. It's the 1949 cars that are hard to find. Southern ordered its last coaches in 1958 from Pullman. Trucks for those cars were taken from scrapped 1941 cars and later replaced with scrapped 1949 14/4 sleepers. If you need any more information about the passenger equipment, let me know. Others are probably much more knowlegeable about the diesels.

-- Chris Williams (cwilliamssouth@msn.com), August 26, 2001.

Steve, You have a good start on locomotives to model Southern Railway passenger service. If you are trying to display trains from different periods in the 1940-1970 period, fine. However, the locomotive paint schemes you describe did not all exist together at any time. There were periods where the early green/white scheme with white roof and extra side stripe co-existed with the later green scheme and when that scheme co-existed with the black/white scheme. Similarly, there was a period when black/white and the final green/white paint jobs could be seen. However, usually passenger equipment was re-painted more rapidly than other locomotives, so you would mostly seen just one of these painting arrangements at a time.

Southern used E-units mostly on the principle Washington - New Orleans main. There were periods when these locomotives showed up elsewhere, but secondary lines usually got secondary locomotives. Thus, the Alco DL-109/110 and PA-3 units were most commonly seen on the Bristol - Memphis or Bristol - Birmingham runs, or on the CNO&TP. I believe the FP-7s were initially used mostly on the CNO&TP also. Secondary trains got steam generator-equipped F-3 or F-7 units. These were painted in a variation of the color scheme used at the time on the E units.

When it comes to passenger cars, there is very little that exactly matches Southern Railway equipment (except for some brass.) The major manufacturers make pretty much generic cars. These are most commonly matches for Santa Fe or Burlington designs, but in truth, they are "sorta Pullman-Standard" or Budd. You won't find very many ACF designs. The manufactures will put any name on the cars that they can sell, regardless of whether that railroad had anything like it. The paint schemes may match the railroad design if we're lucky or they may be completely fanciful.

Athearn heavyweight cars are mostly Santa Fe or Southern Pacific design, shortened to 70' to fit around minimum radius curves. If you paint and letter them for Southern, they are nice looking just as is, and if this is what you want, you should use them. With some effort, they can be made to match Southern prototypes even more closely. The July-August 2001 issue of Ties (Southern Railway Historical Society magazine) has a very good article on modifying the Athearn baggage car to closely resemble a Southern Railway prototype. The same is true for other models.

The same is true for other mass-market kits (AHM, IHC, Spectrum, etc.) The newer cars are wonderfully detailed and very reasonably priced, but they are either generic or modeled after a specific railroad's cars -- and these won't be Southern. They CAN form the basis of very good models of Southern prototypes, if you are willing to put in the work to make minor (OK, maybe major in some cases) alterations. Or, you can use them as they are if they look good enough to you.

If you want your passenger cars to more closely match Southern equipment, the first thing you need is some good photos. If have found excellent SR passenger car photos (in color) in "Southern Railway Varnish 1964-1979" by Ralph Ward (Ashboro NC, 1985.) There are many good black & white photos of SR passenger cars in The Southern Railway Handbook (A. Wiley & C. Wallace, W-W Publications, 1983.)

For Pullman-Standard streamlined cars, get "The Official Pullman- Standard Library, vol. 7, Southeast Railroads" by W. David Randall. This has side elevations and floor plans, interior photos, and everything else for Southern.

SRHA published as Passenger Car diagram book some years ago. This has railroad plans for all passenger cars, heavyweight and lightweight that Southern owned. The drawings are not detailed... you couldn't build a model from one. But it does tell you car length, window and door patterns, etc. I use it to try to find which car numbers most closely match a commerical model or for planning a kit-bash.

Finally, Nickle Plate Products (NKP) has produced a number of kits for most of the 1941 and 1949 Southern streamline cars. These combine plastic body components with nickel silver or nickel-plated brass sides. They take some time to assemble but will give you pretty much exact models of Southern streamlined passenger cars.

-- Tom Warne (twar@chevron.com), September 05, 2001.


Hi Steve, Your best bet is to come across NKP car sides.They are very close to the Southern,L&N,West Point Route cars.I have built several and they are nice looking cars.If you want the cars to be accurate you will have to scratch build the underbody detail.Also, the best decals I have found for Crescent cars are from After Hours Graphics.Maybe this will help you. C. R. Thompson

-- C. R. Thompson (karran@mindspring.com), December 26, 2002.


I BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN USE THE NEW IHC FLUTED SIDE BAGGAGE, RPO, BAGG.DORM.COACH, COACH, & DINER CARS TO MAKE A VERY GOOD "SOUTHERNER" OR IN MY CASE, A "ROYAL PALM". THE IHC CARS EXACTLY MATCH ALL THE DRAWINGS OF THE CARS IN VOL. 7, SOUTHEAST RAILROADS, OF THE OFFICIAL PULLMAN-STANDARD LIBRARY SERIES OF BOOKS BY DAVID RANDALL. IN FACT, THE COLORS OF THE PLASTIC INTERIORS MADE BY IHC FOR THESE CARS ARE MOLDED IN THE COLORS OF THE RESPECTIVE SOUTHERN CARS!

-- PAT COUGHLIN (EDGEWOODRAILS@ATT.NET`), April 05, 2003.

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