[quote user=“Miningman”]
rcdrye- What the? Is this where the much loved Rock Island started to lose it’s mind?
[/quote rcdrye]
For the most unusual, Rock Island rebuilt a prewar observation car into a coach-baggage combine, with the baggage room on the round end! The car was used as a trailer for Rock Island RDCs on the Choctaw Rockette.
See http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3227119
Well, if you’re going to “modify” an round end observation (which look cool but were somewhat of an operational pain as well as eventually becoming a target for cost cutting) into a combine, you have to keep the passenger section at the end with the vestibule/end door so passengers can safely traverse to/from the remainder of the train…so you’re left with placing the baggage section in the “observation lounge” end. If it was a blunt end maybe it wouldn’t look so wonky…
Great find
Southern Pacific had some on the Daylight. One of these cars is with the 4449 in Portland Oregon.
Hey - at least the baggageman had a nice view!
If you notice, there’s no vestibule on the front end anyway. RI eventually removed the RPO apartments from a couple of its RDCs to handle the traffic car 70 was used for - baby chicks in boxes! Bet it smelled nice on a hot spring day…