Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, WI has not operated any open cars in the recent past so I can't contribute much to the conversation of best practices, but an 1899 DSS&A gondola was used by Mid-Continent for that purpose in the at one time in the past as evidenced by this photo.




In Mid-Continent's photo collection I also recently came across this image of Great Northern #903 open viewing car. Unfortunately I don't have any caption or additional information for this photo. If anyone here knows the story behind it, I would love to know more.




-- Jeffrey Lentz

I don't really know the history of this car, but it most likely was a rebuild of an older vehicle. Such cars were not too unusual for service in really scenic lines, among them the Canadian Pacific. Some were totally open like the GN car, others had a roof but had a center enclosed section and open ends, like some California trolley cars:

http://trains-worldexpresses.com/100/121x1_03m.jpg

Source for the above photo:

http://trains-worldexpresses.com/100/121.htm

Later cars in steel:

http://rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-to0598jpa.jpg

http://abpr.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?a ... 6_0805.jpg

http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uplo ... A26977.jpg

http://rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp-to0597jpa.jpg

One of them was in Ross Rowland's 1969 Golden Spike Centenial consist:

http://donstrack.smugmug.com/UtahRails/ ... i-Mq9jrc9/

Source:

http://passcarphotos.info/Indices/CP1.htm

A later CP car is or was preserved in California. Is it still around?

http://www.rypn.org/rypn_files/articles ... aircar.jpg

Source:

http://www.rypn.org/rypn_files/articles ... efault.htm

Two other shots:

http://rr-fallenflags.org/misc-s/srrc-co597rsa.jpg

http://rr-fallenflags.org/misc-s/srrc-co599rsa.jpg


D&RGW had at least one as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal ... r_1918.JPG

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observation_car


While looking for photos of the CP cars, I came across this. One word--fascinating! It seems there is always something new to learn in this field.

http://retours.eu/en/12-canadian-pacifi ... n-austria/

Source:

http://retours.eu/

Some other GN images:

http://www.bigskyjournal.com/dynamic/im ... W2_741.jpg

Source (slideshow):

http://www.bigskyjournal.com/articles/b ... overy.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... on_car.JPG

Looks like SP had them, too (as recreated in HO scale):

http://www.pcrnmra.org/coast/contest/20 ... wyer_1.jpg

http://www.pcrnmra.org/coast/contest/20 ... wyer_2.jpg

Jeff, thanks very much for posting the photo of this unusual GN car.

Several years ago, I purchased some 1-1/2" scale live steam equipment from a friend who was an active member at Mid-Continent, many years ago. One such item was an 80%+ complete model of this car.

What I was told - which I believe to be entirely credible - is these GN cars were crafted from 52' open-platform coaches retired and purchased by GN from the NYC&HR RR.

In this instance, it seems the title of this thread was turned inside-out, as a passenger car - converted to a (passenger) gondola!

Probably the best open car I've ever seen was a conversion of a heavyweight Pullman to an open car by Adirondack Scenic - would have been about 1995 or so. Left the roof on, took out all the windows and cut the belt rail up to the letterboard for open the entire length of the car, took out all bulkheads and partitions. Kept the purlins for roof supports, concrete floor, outward-facing bench seating the full length with 1-2 cutouts so that there were center areas to navigate around. Because of the often-rainy Adirondacks it was a full-season car with drop curtains if necessary. Repainted Pullman green, really 'looked the part' of an historic car in a train. I understand the car was cut up for scrap a couple years ago, don't know details.

Another favorite from a utilitarian standpoint was the conversion of two 65' bulkhead flats to open cars by the B&ML, one now runs on the Downeast Scenic Railroad...
http://www.downeastscenicrail.org/ride/ ... 10-778.jpg Part open, part closed, very practical, mixed seating alternatives.

And while they aren't technically 'open cars', the ex-boxcars on the Cumbres & Toltec (the original 'coaches') rank right up there with being the worst, mostly because of the low roofs and head-banging between cars, evidenced by all manner of end-car cushioning devices for your HEAD. I think those are ancient history now, at least I hope so. Yeah, these: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3519679

Also a memorable for 'worst' was the car that Wayne mentioned on the Gettysburg -that bilevel auto rack that rode indescribably bad, with slick fiberglass bus seats that would slide you right into the aisle at the right harmonic speed on low joints. When I heard that car pounding on the side bearings as it was rocking over that hard, discretion was the better part of valor and I retreated to a normal coach. Anything had to be better than that. Only car I've ever seen that needed seat belts.

One of the FRA presentations I attended seemed to communicate that the concern wasn't as much the origin of the car (freight or passenger) as much as the concern for the 'freight car' working its way into offline interchange service by accident when the car was too old for offline service. If that's true, does anyone know if that has ever actually happened? Ever? I mean, maybe a 40' boxcar, but I'm still confused if that is the rationale behind a gondola used as an open car, if brakes, wheels, etc., are all fully inspected and compatible.

I might point out, all of the historic examples presented so far are PASSENGER cars... the have passenger car trucks, brakes, underframes, draft gear, and buffers. Most, if not all, were converted from older passenger equipment, although I believe Canadian Pacific did build some new.

I can't think of any instance where a railroad (other than a tourist line) converted a freight car to use as an open air "viewing car".

Therefore, there is really no reason for a museum to contemplate doing so.

Long-term usage as passenger conveyances? Of course the major railroads didn't do that.

But short-term for temporary use for tours for special occasions, such as showing around railfans or business leaders? The railroads did it all the time.

Both the Strasburg and the Wilmington and Western converted PRR MP-54 or P-54s into open cars. I believe the Strasburg car is now in service in Durbin, WV.

Mr. Mitchell's post reminded me of the video clip from Fred MdLeod (released as a video by Herron Rail Services) featuring B&O steam with live sound. A YouTube segment from the video is below, and at about 2:02 is a shot of an excursion featuring an EM-1 2-8-8-4 pulling a string of coaches, with drop-end gondolas behind the tender and also behind the last coach. The panned shot of the last car is notable in showing all the enthusiastic enthusiasts waving at McLeod, and on closer inspection, it also seems there is a temporary ramp for access to the gondola from the coach--but I sure wouldn't want to use it while the train was in motion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI99Dvpxo2w

Ugh! I rode that thing, don't recall the ride itself being quite that bad, but the noise! All the squawking, groaning, and other noises from the metal flexing in a car that long and that light. Power was 2-8-0 No. 76, and the car made so much noise you almost couldn't hear the locomotive! And those seats! They were horrible on a bus, horrible on this car, horrible in variations used for things like "modern" libraries and restaurants of the 1970s.

Most people love the time they were teenagers. I hate mine, and atrocities and abominations like those are part of the reason why!

"Real" railroads using flatcars in passenger service? I offer this example:


The New Haven fitted bleacher seats to flatcars every year during the teens to the forties, for special train viewing of the Yale-Harvard Rowing Regatta on the Thames River at New London. The train would operate in alternate years on the NH (east side of river) and on the CV (west side of river).

It looks like these were loaded from the center of the "low" side,, probably off special temporary steps alongside a station platform.

This operation probably gave rise to Harry Foster Malone's comment in the movie "It Happened To Jane"--- "Put bleachers on flatcars and let 'em ride that way", about commuter traffic!! (Ernie Kovacs in a grand and thinly-veiled parody of Patrick B. McGinnis, hated president of the New Haven in 1955).

Howard P.

The Lehigh Valley had similar bleacher cars for use along Cayuga Lake for Cornell University's crew regattas.

For the first "Rail Rambles" run by the Reading in the 1930's, there was a gondola fitted with railings that was used on the rear of several trips. I've seen great movie scenes of an I-8 camelback Consolidation shoving on the rear of a train on the Williams Valley line to Lykens, as well as on a circle trip out of Reading that featured the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Branch and a FAST run back to Reading from Harrisburg. I wonder how many men lost their hats on that one?

So did the trains chase the boats? Or were they just static seating?

Because, you know, there are lots of museums where the scenery is noticeably better on one side than the other...

... and 4 rows of lineal seating per car is mad seat density compared to car length. I mean a regular coach, you typically have 1.0-1.3 butts per car foot, and with outward facing bench seating with gaps, about 0.8-0.9. With 4 linear rows and minimal gaps for aisles, more like 2.5-3.0.



Because standards are awesome. A dead museum has none. So the best way to have high standards is to survive long enough to implement them. Survival requires putting butts into seats. That requires compromise. Ideologues always fail because of this real-world stuff.

This would be a good time to point out that even museums, such as IRM and B&O have used homemeade open air cars, or converted freight equipment for this purpose. IRM used its ex-Milwaukee Electric dump motor to carry passengers a number of years ago, a replication of a real fantrip in Cleveland in the trolley era.

I think B&O had some flats or gons converted into open air cars to pull behind the William Mason.

Oh, and yes, Robert, the boat race cars paced the action.

No, The only way to have a stable museum is to NOT worry about "butts in seats". The load has to be carried by the "gate", that is, what people pay to see what you present. If you are worried that people need the train robbery, may as well just scrap the historic stuff and run what's cheapest/most expedient.