Well, I am creating a completely fictional train for my future layout. My era is early 1950’s and PRR. So I was asking for a general opinion on this possible consist. K4s, baggage,Combine/snack car (kitbash project), two heavyweight coaches, one streamlined coach, and my theater car as the last car. I was asking, should I have more streamlined or heavyweight cars?
Jimmy.
The theater car would be in front of the baggage cars. Anyway the PRR ran heavyweights into the PC years. It would not matter how many HW and LW cars would be in any given fictional consist.
Pete
You will need a dining car and if an overnight train at least one sleeper of some configuration.
Itra
Really about the Theater car. Since it has the big rear window, wouldn’t it be more suited to filling the spot of a observation car? Maybe I could rework the combine into a overflow for the diner.
I suspect there is some confusion over the definition of a “theater” car. Loco I1sa probably thought Jimmy was referring to a scenery car, used for transporting scenery for traveling theater troupes. Kits are available from Bethlehem Car Works, I think. Jimmy is probably referring to an inspection car with a large rear-facing window and rear-facing gallery seats, arranged as in a theater.
As for the original question, I think I’d refer to books that describe typical consists. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD PASSENGER TRAINS, CONSISTS AND CARS - 1952 by Harry Stegmaier Jr. (TLC, 2003) is a good one. Another is PENNSY STREAMLINERS, THE BLUE RIBBON FLEET by Joe Welsh (Kalmbach, 1999) is another.
??? What are you calling a Theater car? They had theatrical scenery cars like this. http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/prr6061.jpg They were used to ship theatrical scenery from city to city. They had end doors for long items like this. http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/prr6072.jpg That is the only theater cars I know of. They all had names such as Romeo, Juliet, Shakespere and other Theatrical names.
Pete
I think that Jimmy is using “Theater Car” to describe the car equipped with rear facing seats, and a full rear window, as found on the rear ends of Official Inspection trains such as the Conrail OCS trains.
What Pete is calling a Theater Car, is the end door baggage car designed to handle scenery and props for “Road show” Theatrical productions. I refer to these as baggage cars equipped for special loads, as when not handling theatrical material, they were routinely used as baggage, mail or express cars.
Problem with the “Theater Car” is that the concept did not come into being until the '60s or so, prior to that, most inspections were conducted from office cars coupled to the rear of scheduled trains.
For what it’s worth, a 1950s PRR scheduled passenger train could, (did), contain a mizture of HW and LW equipment.
Most PRR consists included a mixture of heavyweight and lightweight equippment, including the Broadway Limited.
There is a large volume of PRR consist information on the Keystone Crossings web site, and other PRR oriented web sites.
Joe
Greetings,
You can go to the Keystone Crossings site. Under the “operations” tab there’s a collection of Pennsy consist books. Be a good thing to check out.
Good luck,
Benny
Yes, I am referring to the OCS “theater car” concept. I created a work of fiction…a PRR theater car.
PRR did have a theater car as back as the 1930s. Pictures taken from it on a fan trip appear in Pennsy Power. I believe it was wood. Used on every day service and assigned to a train would be implausible.
Yeah. It does appear there was some confusion here. I remember hearing when I was with Conrail that the rear viewing car for execs on the OCS was called the ‘theater car’ by some and ‘gallery car’ by others. At the time we would prep the E8’s at Enola then send them to Reading to get the cars. Many of us on Conrail called the OCS…the party train.
Mark H
Sorry for the confusion. The PRR did have a track inspection car but did not have a big window on the end. http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=trackinspection-E96515a.gif&sel=misc&sz=sm&fr= The seating is in this diagram. http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=trackinspection_fp-E96515a.gif&sel=misc&sz=sm&fr=
I am no PRR expert but I do not know if the PRR had what some are calling the a theater car. Could it be a lounge car you have? Some lounge cars had the single swivel seats especially the smokers lounge cars.
Pete
I scratchbuilt a theater car, based on the idea of the Conrail Office car special “Theater car”. It has a big rearview window instead of a platform, and mine have compartments and a lounge area where the window is. It is a work of pure fiction, with no prototype ever built.
Gotcha now. Thanks for the explanantion. Sorry for the confusion. To me the Theater cars were the end door baggage cars. Someone on another forum was asking about the seventy foot express stock cars the PRR had. What he meant was the horse cars used for transporting race horses. They were named after race tracks and stables.
It is kind of ammusing that the scenery cars and horse cars traveled farther than most other PRR passenger equipment. Anyone modeling the early 1900s to the 1960s of any road could have one of the scenery or horse cars and be plausible. I saw a picture once of the second section of the SF Super Chief with a couple of NH heavy weight horse cars behind the ABBA lashup.
Happy modeling.
Pete
In one of the recent MRR issues, it was suggested that when you freelance passenger trains, you should look for photos of your era to get an idea of what cars were used. It also mentioned how the smaller/less popular trains and routes got a mix of heavy weights and light weights depending on what was available.
going in conjunction with this, it’s also handy to know what your prototype operated. The shortest SP&S passenger trains #5 and #6 were train 3 & 4(6 cars) cut in half. (3 cars each) behnd the F unit pair that would lead the train.
I really like passenger trains and I’ve found that I like the mix of heavy and light weight cars, far more than the uniform trains. thankfully the SP&S operated like that.
For a pennsy train a Bagagge/ RPO, a pair or trio of coaches, a diner, maybe a sleeper, and an observation car(your homemade one) would be pretty neat. I’m no pennsy expert or knowledgable about it at all but, RPo cars were big moneymakers back in the day.
There’s the fictional one
