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 Post subject: Osgood Bradley Pattern Arch Roof Coaches - Survivors?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2023 4:45 pm 

Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:07 pm
Posts: 1192
Location: Leicester, MA.
So where it seems to me that I keep finding cars of the Osgood Bradley pattern of arch roof coach from the mid 1920s in places I didn't expect, maybe a concise history of survivors to that pattern, where they are and histories as best can be established might be helpful.

The pattern was first built for the Boston and Albany as 100+ passenger commuter coaches for Boston-area services. That was followed by cars for the NYC's Putnam Division, and clones built for the CNW in Chicago. Some of the cars were used to build the NYC's Mercury Streamliner, and there have been a plethora of second-hand owners.

To date, I've got five cars definitely pegged for the three main types.

Coaches: 2

No. 221, located in Lincoln, NH. I'm assuming this may be one of the D&H cars that was used for their name trains that overlapped with the PAs on the property. But in it's present configuration as a car for a dinner train (with small kitchen and table seating), the most I can say is that number matches one of the D&H cars. And where I've yet to see what cars the D&H picked up (along with original numbers), I can't say for certain who this one was originally built for.

No. 1135, located at the Whitewater Valley in Connersville, IN. Without knowing more of where it was and who had it, I'm not sure if the present number is a number it historically wore or was applied to the car at Whitewater. That said, from what I can tell from my research, 1135 would be a NYC number applied to the first of the B&A cars at a later date. That might peg it as B&A 335 assuming they just swapped the first 3 in all of the cars for an 11, as the rosters might seem to indicate they did with the entire B&A fleet when renumbered to fit a block of 1100-1179 when folded into NYC rosters.

Combines: 3
No. 7718, Located at the Whitewater Valley in Connersville, IN. Given the roof vent design, and that the NYC only seems to have had one combine for the Putnam Division (alongside the two Coach-Baggage-RPOs), and that the number seems to fit with the CNW cars? I'm betting this is one of the ex-CNW clones.

No. 7721, located at the Oklahoma Railway Museum in Oklahoma City. This is one of the AC&F built clones for the CNW. Their documentation notes that the CNW cars made extensive use of aluminum in the car's construction. Their scanned clipping of the CNW's announcement on their cars does show one of the coaches with the same type of roof vent seen on 7718.

No. 7700, located at IRM in Union.


Coach-Baggage-RPO: 0

For only two built, I can't say this one shocks me all THAT much. I'd be more surprised if one was parked in a siding somewhere.

Now given that I keep coming across other oddball cars in my research (for instance two B&M American Flyer type cars converted to storage for a warehouse on Long Island that are still evidently in existance, and a B&M wooden coach that made it to California) I can't rule out that there are others out there I missed. But I also kept running into people pointing me to Long Island Pings (P54Ds) which share a good number of visual ques with the Osgood Bradley cars. And there at least three others that made it into the last fifteen years or so (all having passed through the Otter Valley Railroad's hands) before being chopped up.

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 Post subject: Re: Osgood Bradley Pattern Arch Roof Coaches - Survivors?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 06, 2023 8:36 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:51 pm
Posts: 148
The Cadillac & Lake City had two Osgood Bradley commuter cars which. were the primary cars used in its later years while based in Lake City, MI. I believe they went with Joe Rogers' ex-CUT 750 hp Lima switcher to the White Water Valley.
Alex Huff, C&LC dining car waiter emeritus


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 Post subject: Re: Osgood Bradley Pattern Arch Roof Coaches - Survivors?
PostPosted: Thu Sep 07, 2023 11:08 am 

Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:07 pm
Posts: 1192
Location: Leicester, MA.
Alex Huff wrote:
The Cadillac & Lake City had two Osgood Bradley commuter cars which. were the primary cars used in its later years while based in Lake City, MI. I believe they went with Joe Rogers' ex-CUT 750 hp Lima switcher to the White Water Valley.
Alex Huff, C&LC dining car waiter emeritus


So then that begs a question. Where's the second one? Is it on a deadline somewhere? Where it seems that at least 1135 went to the NYSW, that might peg both C&LC coaches as NYSW 212 and 216, where they only had a pair of them for their own uses. As a note, there was a picture I came across showing a red Whitewater coach wearing the number 212, circa 2007 from near as I can tell.

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 Post subject: Re: Osgood Bradley Pattern Arch Roof Coaches - Survivors?
PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 2:07 pm 
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Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:05 pm
Posts: 1053
Location: MA
We have one lying around at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum. It is Bangor and Aroostook Railroad 230 converted to MoW service. I think the ZRMNE has some New Haven ones laying around.


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 Post subject: Re: Osgood Bradley Pattern Arch Roof Coaches - Survivors?
PostPosted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 10:29 pm 

Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:07 pm
Posts: 1192
Location: Leicester, MA.
RCD wrote:
We have one lying around at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum. It is Bangor and Aroostook Railroad 230 converted to MoW service. I think the ZRMNE has some New Haven ones laying around.

You're thinking the American Flyer cars. These suburban coaches predated those by about a decade.

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