ACL stainless sleepers on EL's Phoebe Snow in 1966

greenspun.com : LUSENET : ACL and SAL Railroads Historical Society : One Thread

In the summer of 1966 the Phoebe Snow often had an Atlantic Coast Line stainless steel sleeper between the diner and the tavern lounge.

Does anyone know the reason for these off-line travels in an era when EL had more of their own sleepers than they needed?

We're batting this around on the EL email list and nobody has come up with a good answer yet. I thought this might be a good place to ask :)

Thanks,

Henry - Railfan.net Admin.

-- J. Henry Priebe Jr. (EL_List@railfan.net), August 13, 2002

Answers

This is a reply from Ed Montgomery on the EL list:

>>>>> Your explanation makes a lot of sense. I wasn't aware of the need for Pullman cars in Canada. I observed these sleepers on the Phoebe Snow in the middle of summer -- July 1966.

Ed Montgomery <<<<<

Henry - playing relay-boy

-- J. Henry Priebe Jr. (EL_List@railfan.net), August 15, 2002.


I assume that the car in question was a 10 roomette-6 double bedroom car in the "County" series. If that is the case, then the most logical explanation is that Pullman "pool" kicked in and supplied these cars while the E-L's own sleepers were out of service for various reasons. Some of the ex Erie cars were already sold to the CN, with others being leased to CN,while some of the ex Lackawanna cars were in repair status. Remember-1966 was the time of CN needing a lot of modern equipment and many US cars were leased to them. During that summer, I rode in an ex Erie sleeper on the CN's Panorama and Super Continental between Toronto and Vancouver.

If this was the summer, then ACL had cars to spare. There can be no operational need to have ACL cars shuttle between Hoboken and Chicago, since neither terminal was on an ACL sleeper line.

Are there photos of the ACL cars on the Phoebe Snow?

Of course, it wasn't the first time that ACL cars were at Dearborn station in Chicago. Plenty of ACL cars used that station under the auspices of the C&EI as part of the "Dixie" fleet. By 1966, this was history.

-- Michael W. Savchak (Savchak@mnr.org), August 14, 2002.


Some more info from erielack list member Joel McEachen of Faifield, CT:

>>>>> A while back, I was doing some research on use of Pullman sleepers as budget room sleepers, seems the UP used some 22 roomette sleepers (at a loss) with the carpet removed (noise???) and shoe lockers sealed CHI-Denver to counter CB&Q's SlumberCoaches; ACL used 16DupRmte/4DBr "Bird" cars also as budget room sleepers NY-Miami. It was then mentioned that ACL's Florida routes needed bedroom accomodations, not roomettes, thus its roomette cars were often sidelined. The 4DBr's of the "Bird" cars were a welcome addition to their Florida runs. Even PRR had a difficult time using their 22 roomette cars, seems to me they converted a number of them to coaches (as NYC had earlier had Budd convert excess 10/6 cars to SleeperCoaches.)

Thus, my theory is that ACL had many spare 10/6 sleepers (and I seem to remember this from an ACL newsgroup and/or book,) E-L could have leased them to cover the end of Phoebe Snow/Lake Cities runs. This hinges on when E-L began selling its lightweight, streamlined cars, though.

Webmaster's note: At this point the quote off the EL Board diverged into another discussion not relevant to Mr. Priebe's comments and questions...so I deleted it. This is an intriguing poser, and certainly worth the time and effort for some of you consist sleuths out there!!! Buck Dean

Henry - Railfan.net Admin.

-- J. Henry Priebe Jr. (EL_List@railfan.net), August 14, 2002.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ