I have been talking with the folks at Cuyahoga Valley about "Fort Mitchell," which they use in excursion service. Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the railroad are about twenty miles from where I now live.

CofGa Offical Lists show the car as just "Fort Mitchell," with the other vestibuled combination baggage and passenger cars, right after 390. I have seen it listed in other sources, including Beckum and Langley, as 391. (Beckum and Langley have it as the second 391, first 391 being a mail car built in 1911.)

According to Cuyahoga Valley, they received it as number 727. It must have been renumbered after the Southern merger. Does anyone know the details of who renumbered Fort Mitchell from 391 to 727 and when this was done?

Ron. Wright

-- Ron Wright (rondywright@hotmail.com), April 02, 2002

Answers

Thanks for the answers. I passed them along to Cuyahoga Valley.

I have also been adding to the comments on the Survivors List, including details like length, number of seats, etc, where appropriate. I'll link the answers in there, too.

Ron. Wright

-- Ron Wright (rondywright@hotmail.com), April 04, 2002.

Our 527 was and is still in IC colors. But our coach 651 was also in IC colors before it was repainted and renumbered for service on the New Georgia. I've seen no photos of this car, but I did see the car before it was repainted and it looked a lot better than 527, which when I first saw it was so faded I didn't recognize the colors as IC.

-- Jamie Reid (leite@mindspring.com), April 16, 2002.

I may be mistaken about the 543... I am trying to follow-up on this and will get back to you shortly...

-- Jerry M. LaBoda (jmlaboda2@yahoo.com), April 16, 2002.

Thanks Allen - I meant to say in my previous post that the 663 and 670-72 were the only -lightweight- cars I knew of in IC colors. My photos of heavyweight cars in IC colors corresponds to your list. It's always been strange to me that IC didn't mandate the other roads to contribute any heavyweight headend cars in IC colors, as ACL and CofG did with heavyweight coaches - since even though the Seminole (in its better days I mean) had nicely matched passenger-carrying cars, its headend equipment was always a mish-mash of Pullman green, ACL purple, you name it!

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), April 16, 2002.

Larry,

We have photographs of the following CofGa cars in IC colors at various dates: 473, 474, 506, 526, 527, 528, 531, 627, 630, 663 (City of Miami lettering), 672 (City of Miami lettering)

Additionally, we have documentation that the following cars were also painted IC colors: 670, 671, 532, 533

I would be happy to see any confirmation of other cars painted IC colors.

Allen Tuten

-- Allen Tuten (allen@cofg.org), April 16, 2002.

The ex-CofG heavyweight cars, renumbered to the SR 900 series, were sometimes used in steam excursion service in the early 70s. I am not aware that ex-CofG 543 was ever painted in the IC colors - I believe only 663 and 670-672 had the IC colors.

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), April 16, 2002.

The "Ft. Mitchell" did not recieve its Southern number until the car was officially transferred to the Southern, as a part of the Central joining Amtrak, circa 1971. Like the 390, it was renumbered above the SR's original modernized cars as a part of the transfer of ownership, as were several of the modernized coaches and 543, the only remaining coach of the 540-series that wasn't reconfigured (renumbered to the 900-series, after SR's P.S. divided coaches).

Unlike a large number of other lines, the S.R. felt it would be best to "cash-out" the Central's passenger service, believing that Amtrak would at least continue the Nancy Hanks II, with the cash payment being made instead of paying some cash and transferring some cars. Interestingly enough, on documents dealing with SR passenger equipment from the 70s (both excursion equipment as well as revenue passenger cars that were being used) the 660-series coaches from the Nancy Hanks II (660-662) were carried as "CG 660, CG 661, CG 662" even though they carried full Southern lettering without the common sublettering, as the CNO&TP, AGS and GS&F cars had had.

As far as the 900-series renumbered coaches go, all three cars (the two modernized coaches as well as 543) retained their IC-pool service paint with Southern lettering for several years even though they were no longer used in such service, making them some of the most noticeable cars on the Southern roster.

-- Jerry M. LaBoda (jmlaboda2@yahoo.com), April 03, 2002.

Ron,

All four of the Budd cars for the Man O' War (Fort Mitchell, Fort Oglethorpe, Fort McPherson, and Fort Benning) were delivered with names only. We have some correspondence (regarding refurbishing passenger cars) from February 1952 which refers to the cars by name and not by number. The same correspondence refers to cars on the Nancy Hanks II by car number.

As part of the refurbishment in spring of 1952, the Man O' War cars received a red "hat band." I have a photo dated 5/1953 which shows the full Man O' War train with the red "hat band" but without numbers. Even if date on the photograph is wrong, it proves that the cars had the red "hat band" before they had car numbers.

So the car numbers weren't added until sometime after the refurbishment in mid-1952. When they were numbered, Fort Mitchell became 391.

Fort Mitchell was renumbered by the Southern as 727 sometime after the 1963 merger. I have two photographs (from two different photographers) dated in 1969, both of which show the car still numbered as 391. We also have a Southern roster from early 1974 which shows the car renumbered as 727. So the renumbering from 391 to 727 occured sometime between 1969 and 1974 (possibly during the 1971 merger of the CofGa Rwy into the CofGa RR.)

Allen Tuten

-- Allen Tuten (allen@cofg.org), April 02, 2002.