This arch roof modernized heavyweight car caught my attention when I saw it in one of the videos of Chessie Safety Express on YouTube. A legit source stated that it was ex-B&O 80-seat coach 5234 built-in 1923 by Pullman and later became buffet lounge BE observation. I note the rear trucks were placed closer to the edge of the car; was that part of the modification when B&O converted it from a coach to a buffet lounge observation?
By the way, is there any book or article worth reading which is about modernized heavyweight passenger equipment in North America? (Pennsy called them betterment car) Thanks a lot!
I note the rear trucks were placed closer to the edge of the car; was that part of the modification when B&O converted it from a coach to a buffet lounge observation?
Coaches usually have vestibules at both ends to speed up loading and unloading. It looks like the vestibule was removed from what became the observation end. Note the frame curving down at the rear end and the same feature next to the vestibule steps at the other end.
I may be wrong, as I don’t have a genialogy of the car at hand, but the car looks to be the one that graced the rear of the B&O’s Royal Blue until that train’s operation was discontinued when the B&O discontinued operation of all passenger trains between Washington and New York in April 1958.
Thank you, Peter. Was it worth the effort to remove the vestibule like this because the vestibule should be sturdy enough to support the new observation end? I think this approach made the cars look better though. [:)] My favorite train had a car with a similar look:
PRR #9255 PB70ER
Balt, you are probably right, It was B&O 3302. But I am not sure if this observation car was with the Royal Blue or not.
http://www.bullsheet.com/hoopercar.html
The Baltimore Sun, March 16, 1974
Funeral services for Edward G. Hooper, retired assistant to the corporate secretary of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, were held yesterday at the Cook Brooks funeral establishment in Towson. Mr. Hooper, who was 90 and had lived for many years in Northwood, died Tuesday.
NRHS Bulletin Vol. 36, No. 3, 1971
Chairman Edward G. Hooper had an opportunity to ride aboard Chapter car No. 3302, the
By the way, is there any book or article worth reading which is about modernized heavyweight passenger equipment in North America? (Pennsy called them betterment car) Thanks a lot!
I’d recommend Arthur Dubin’s “Some Classic Trains” and “More Classic Trains”, both originally published by Kalmbach and based on (many) articles in Trains Magazine in the 1960s. It covers the Royal Blue, the Forty Niner, the GM&O Gulf Coast Rebel and a number of lesser known Southern (area) trains that used rebuilt heavyweight cars. As “Trains” observed recently, the Panama Limited observation “Gulfport” was a rebuilt heavyweight car…
There is good coverage of the Forty Niner in Kratville’s UP Streamliners…
Thanks a lot for the book list!! I am collecting pictures and gathering information about betterment car or modernized heavyweight passenger car recently. I want to further study the topic in-depth since I always think that modernized heavyweight passenger equipment was sometimes sexier than new pre-war or early post-war cars. [C][swg]
