Hello,

I am in the process of writing a book about the Conrail Office Car Special (details of which are available at my website) and am trying to track down some information on the history of Conrail #24. I believe the car went to Amtrak at some point and eventually ended up with the reporting mark PTMS 100. I *believe* this is the Pittsburgh Transportation Museum Society. I have photos of the car in the Misc Shop in Juniata with the reporting marks PLHS 100. The photo was taken in November 1991, before the car became Conrail 24.

Does anyone have any information on this former hospital car or can tell me who the "PLHS" reporting mark belongs to?

Many thanks in advance.

Wes

Hopefully others may chime in here. Once upon a time, there were occasions where one could slap a fictitious reporting mark on a car, get it in the billing system and sent out. With AEI tags mandatory since 1994, I would think it pretty hard or impossible to get away with it nowadays. So, yeah, there have been instances in the past where a car with fictitious reporting marks could’ve gotten out in the general system.

If Conrail bought the car from an on-line private owner and moved it without interchange, I could imagine it not being entered into UMLER and arriving at the Conrail shops with a bogus reporting mark. It would have been a move that didn’t need to be tracked or invoiced.

I have no clue who PTMS or PLHS could have been. Pittsburgh Transportation Museum Society was PTMX.

PTMS was a 501(c)3 that once upon a time was allowed to occupy track space at the P&LE station in Pittsburgh. After they left that location the group dissolved and their equipment, which included some passenger cars and the sole extant Western Maryland GP7, found a home at the defunct Union Pipe Foundry site in McKeesport.

In the fall of 2001, a quasi-public organization gained control of that property and what was left of the PTMS and their property were evicted.

I do not know if any of that equipment made it out of McKeesport on its own wheels or not. I do know that WM 22 died there.

I have only spoke with one member of PTMS: Harry Bechtold. I only know one other person I have ever spoken to about that organization that had any personal knowledge of the people and the equipment of PTMS: Ken Bitten.

They may or may not be members of this forum or other social media. If it were me, that would be my ground zero in any quest to learn the fate of the PTMS cars.