In rereading (for the unphteenth time) Larry Goolsby's excellent book on ACL Passenger Service I got to wondering if anyone could tell me if any of the Florida East Coast or Richmond Fredricksburg and Potomac pool cars ever carried the purple letterboard?

Larry has a shot of a Pennsy. car with the purple letterboard and PRR style lettering and it has me wondering (since I am working at upgrading passenger car drawings that I have done in the past) about the application of the purple letterboard on other roads passenger cars.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated!!!

-- Jerry M. LaBoda (laboda@bellsouth.net), June 15, 2004

Answers

Jerry, according to the RF&P books I have, it appears that sleepers in the ACL pool initially wore purple letterboards. Photos confirm this for sleepers STRATFORD COUNTY, SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, BYRD ISLAND, VIRGINIA BEACH, FAIRFAX RIVER, and also diner HENRICO. The two other County sleepers (CAROLINE and HANOVER) may also have worn purple, but I can't confirm this. At least one RF&P coach (#801) wore full-lenght purple letterboards.

-- Bob Venditti (bobvend@bellsouth.net), June 20, 2004.

Jerry:

Now that is very interesting since if the Salerno was painted in IC colors, then it must have been de-sheathed in a manner similar to the Lantana. If you are interested, I can send you some scans I made of photos of the cars. Contact me off this web site directly to my E- mail.

-- Mike Savchak (Savchak@rcn.com), June 19, 2004.

"Just to settle the issue, there appear to have been THREE FEC coaches that were painted in IC colors for use on the City of Miami.

"The first two cars were the 'Sebastian' and the 'Canal Point'. At sometime, the Canal Point was rebuilt to have an aluminum painted upper surface and was given a stainless steel corrugated panel below the windows-with a significant gap between the bottom of the windows and the stainless steel panel. In the meantime, the FEC 'Lantana' originally built as a stainless steel sheathed car, was rebuilt as a flat steel car and painted in the City of Miami scheme."

This isn't the first time that the IC painted cars have come up on the Q&A bulliten board... back some time ago I had asked question about these same cars because of the images of S.A.L. 6267 showing the half corrugation and the 6269, shown in I.C. paint with S.A.L.lettering. From that thread, and from people's imput from elsewhere, a total of four cars were found to have been painted, at one time or another, in IC paint: CANAL POINT, LANTANA, SALERNO and SABASTIAN. I guess that you could say that I now know "The Rest of the Story" because at that time I was under the impression that the cars with half corrugation were rebuilt by the S.A.L., I didn't know that this modification was done by the F.E.C. I do know that two cars were rebuilt with the Budd style corrugation and it makes me wonder if both of the early cars were rebuilt in this fashion. The photo of 6267 shows it coupled to another car with the same features...

I will soon be working on some drawings of the A.C.L., F.E.C., R.F.&P. and S.A.L. (and their S.C.L. versions) P.S. 54/56 - seat coaches so all of this info will be of great help. The information will help me to do the cars appropriately and I do appreciate the information!!!

Once I get the drawings finished I will let you all know about them...

-- Jerry M. LaBoda (laboda@bellsouth.net), June 19, 2004.

Just to settle the issue, there appear to have been THREE FEC coaches that were painted in IC colors for use on the City of Miami. The first two cars were the "Sebastian" and the "Canal Point". At sometime, the Canal Point was rebuilt to have an aluminum painted upper surface and was given a stainless steel corrugated panel below the windows-with a significant gap between the bottom of the windows and the stainless steel panel. In the meantime, the FEC "Lantana" originally built as a stainless steel sheathed car, was rebuilt as a flat steel car and painted in the City of Miami scheme.

You can see color photos of the Canal Point and Lantana in Paul Faulk's book on the SAL, while black and white builders photos showing the Sebastian and Lantana can be found in Dave Randall's Pullman Standard Vol 7 book, and photos of the Canal Point in its original paint scheme can be found in Seth Bramson's Speedway to Sunshine book, as well as in R. Lyle Key's Mid-West Florida Sunliners book.

-- Mike Savchak (Savchak@mnr.org), June 16, 2004.

As an aside, some consist notes from 1950 that I have seen have noted purple letterboard PRR coaches assigned to Seaboard trains.

It should be noted that unless Stainless Steel is acid etched, paint will not adhere for long.Even then, stainless steel is not known for paint adhesion. PRR was one railroad that insisted on having most of its Budd built cars delivered painted. Most of the pre-war cars were not specially treated and they quickly started to look bedraggled. The post war sleepers-50 21 roomette cars, two 10-6 and two coach- lounges that were delivered as Stainless painted cars had a special acid etched finish. These cars were subsequently stripped of their paint, but were always distinguishable by their dull looking finish.

-- Mike Savchak (Savchak@mnr.org), June 15, 2004.

The other lightweight FEC car painted in IC colors was the "Canal Point".

-- Mike Savchak (Savchak@mnr.org), June 15, 2004.

Forgot one footnote on the FEC cars - there were a few exceptions to the "always black on stainless steel" rule, namely coach Boca Raton (later SAL 6257) assigned to the PRR South Wind and painted in PRR colors and lettering font, and 2 coaches in IC colors for the City of Miami. One of these was Lantana (later SAL 6269), don't have the other name handy.

-- Larry Goolsby (lgoolsby@aphsa.org), June 15, 2004.

Jerry, thanks for the kind words. Going by the photos and information I've come across, RF&P and PRR cars assigned to the Florida trains had ACL-style lettering, including the purple letterboards when they were in effect (until about 1958). However, while certain FEC cars used the ACL-font lettering style, the color was always black on stainless steel. I have seen correspondence files noting that FEC decided on this even though ACL and the other lines were using purple, but no reason was given.

Speaking of the RF&P cars, I know that their first lightweight Budd cars assigned to ACL trains had "Richmond-Washington Line" in ACL font on purple across the letterboards, not the RR name, and then the initials RF&P and the car number below. I don't have a good photo of one of these cars, only a blowup of a corner of a negative. However, it's clear enough to reveal this lettering. I would sure like to find a good shot of one of these if anyone can help, and also the year RF&P changed over to using the RR name on the letterboard.

-- Larry Goolsby (lgoolsby@aphsa.org), June 15, 2004.