Hi everybody
Reading the book “GM’s Geeps” I saw a picture of Union Pacific train 19 rolling near Wallula, Washington, in 1965.
It captured my attention becaase it consisted only of a GP7, a baggage car a single sleeper. I couldn’t find neither the name of this trains nor the departure/destination.
Every information about train 19 is welcome
Thanks
Davide
If you were looking at the picture of which I am thinking, it also appeared as a center picture in TRAINS in the late 60’s. The “sleeper” was actually a coach was had been converted from a 14-section sleeper.
UP 19-20 operated between Spokane and Hinkle, OR, where it connected with UP’s Oregon Short Line. It may have carried additional mail and express in earlier years.
UP 19 and 20 were named “The Spokane”, and were truly unique. The most unique thing, I think, is that they lasted up until Amtrak day in 1971, even though their connections (at the end) in Hinkle with other UP trains were very poor.
From a 1952 Official Guide, however, it’s interesting to note that these trains featured numerous through car services. Through sleeping cars were provided between Spokane and Los Angeles, Spokane and Portland, and Walla Walla and Portland. “Coach-Sleeping Cars” operated Yakima to Portland via Wallula and there was even a through coach from Moscow to Portland.
thank you everybody!
I don’t know if we’re talking about the same picture, but likely we do. It jsut represents train 19 rolling down the shore of Columbia river in southern Washington.
Why did UP have to convert a sleeper into a normal coach car? Did it suffer from a so bad shortage of normal coaches?
Lots of people did that. As demand for sleeper space decreased, they took the cars and converted them to coaches so they could retire heavyweights that were in service. Other conversions involved section cars (sections became very passe’) and parlor cars. MP had some chair cars converted from 14-4 sleepers, that retained the original window arrangement, so a lot of the seats were witohut windows, and the arrangement was different on each side of the car.
Hope this helps.
I would be quite disappointed!
what is a “section car”?
A rather well-known conversion of sleeping cars to coaches was that of at least 50 sleepers being rebuilt to high-capacity coaches for PRR for service on the New York-Washington line. Most of these were 10R-6DBR or 21Roomette sleepers so the conversions weren’t confined to sleepers with open sections.
thank you everybody! I didn’t know anything about caoaches’ “conversions”.
Do you thiink it would be possible to remove the interior of an ho model coach and put it into a sleeper to simulate a “converted” sleeper?
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by davide80
Sections refer to open sections, which are the upper and lower berths that are commonly associated with travel by sleeping car. They are “open” in the sense that only a curtain separates the beds from the aisle. Probably the most common sleeping car floor plan in the heavyweight era was 12 sections and 1 drawing room.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH
Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. CSSHEGEWISCH answered your question. Private rooms were generally unpopular in the US until the advent of the lightweight all-room cars in the 1930’s. Lots of reasons, many of which revolved around what many straightlaced Americans thought went on behind the closed doors of the private rooms. It didn’t help that one of the pioneer all-room car designs in the late 1800’s was Mann’s “Boudoir Car”, a name that conjured up all kinds of naughty speculation about what the decadent European lifestyle implicit in the name might do to poison the heretofore squeaky clean (!) egalitarian American sensibilities.[}:)][}:)] Consequently, well over 90% of the Pullman heavyweight fleet incorporated open sections (upper and lower berths) as their primary accommodation. As CSSHEGEWISCH says, the most popular was the 12-1 arrangement, but there were also loads of 14 and 16 section cars, many of which were retired, but quite a few were converted to tourist cars in the 1930’s, and then to troop sleepers and hospital cars in WWII.
Particularly after the war, these cars could be had for next to nothing (including the tourist cars, as that market dried up), and with the popularity of the modern long distance air-conditioned reclining seat coach, they became prime candidates for conversion to coaches. It also helped that they had big lounges and restrooms at each end, which fit right in with the accommodation plan, and the windows were the right ar
drephpe,
thank you for your detailed answer. I didn’t know anything about this type of cars. And I also think there had never been cars like these in the country I live in (Italy).
Bye
Davide
and he notes -
The Boston & Maine converted several sleepers to baggage cars. They had plated over windows, added baggage doors and retained their vestibules.
I remember seeing them in back in the 50s in Nashua, NH on the “Paper Train”, a 3:00 a.m. accommodation that ran from Boston, Mass. to Concord, NH and then split with one section going on to White River Jct., Vt. and the other to Woodsville, NH.
In later years, the train dropped the baggage cars at Concord and an E Unit and a single coach went on to White River Jct. and a BL2 and another coach continued to Plymouth, NH. All were dismantled or sold during the McGinnis era.
Other conversions included the section sleepers of the California Zephyr owned by all three railroads that we converted to non-dome coaches and still operated as overflow and protection equipment for the California Zephyr, with two continuing on the Rio Grande Zephyr. When the NYNH&H got its post WWII lightweight Pullman, stainless steel sided parlor and parlor baggage cars it converted its six-wheel truck heavyweight parlors to high-capacity commuter coaches, replacing the New York Westchester and Boston ex-multiple unit cars that had replaced the open platform wood cars in the late 30’s. These ex-parlors were the first air-conditioned commuter cars in the Boston area. They lasted until the Old Colony abandonements.
On all the conversions, a tell-tale sign was the windows that did not match the seating.