When reading through the Summer 2016 issue of the Nickel Plate Road Magazine published by the NKP Historical & Technical Society, I came across a photo of the railroads passenger car 883. This was a wooden car, part RPO and part coach. I don't recall seeing this combination before usually seeing straight RPO's or RPO/baggage cars. I do recall seeing cars that were RPO/baggage/coach combinations, but never a straight RPO/coach configuration. I can't post the photo of 883 here, but I did find a somewhat similar NKP car here:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3798279

The second car in the photo is a similar NKP RPO/coach. Maybe this configuration was more common than I thought. My question is this; are there any of these straight RPO/coach combinations preserved? If common, I will be enlightened!

Thanks.

Les

For the most part it seems more common in the Midwest than elsewhere in the country, and not in great numbers even then. As for a preserved car... never have encountered such in all my searches on the internet looking for passenger car photos.

Here is another NKP car, with a larger RPO section.

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/nkp883.jpg

The original series were NKP 880 - 887. In looking at notes in the NKP diagram book from 1938 it appears that all were originally 30' mail - smoker cars all but 883 and 884 were rebuilt as 15' mail apartment cars by NKP while retaining the numbers 880, 882 and 885, was also 887 until destroyed by fire 22May30... the larger were NKP 883, 884. All were mail - smokers.

Steel heavyweight examples existed on, at least, the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Missouri Pacific and Rock Island with none of them being in great numbers. Most were retired early into the lightweight era or converted to Maintenance of Way service. Regrettably none survive.

Rutland had a couple of coach-RPOs, they were steel cars with 15 foot RPO apartments.

DL&W had a some 15 foot RPO/coach cars that were MUs for the New Jersey suburban service. I recall that they were "high trailers" in overall configuration.

Howard P.

The Santa Fe had three RPO-smoker (coach) cars built by Pullman in 1929 and numbered 90-92. These had the small (15') RPO compartment. I understand these were initially used on the Los Angeles-San Diego passenger trains. One car went into branch line baggage-passenger-caboose service in the 1940s. The other two were on the roster until about 1954. IIRC, these two cars were given to north San Diego county model railroad clubs and for that use had some of the passenger seats were removed. I think one was once at Oceanside and the other at Escondido. No I idea how long the cars lasted.

So, two made it to a quasi-preservation.

Interesting thing is that only the one car that went to branch line service has been mentioned in any of the Santa Fe passenger car books.

Jerry, Howard and Brian -

Thanks for all of the info. Sounds like none of this particular configuration of passenger car has made it into preservation, which is what I suspected.


Les

Yes, they were originally built as "Boonton" open-platform mail - coaches which were rebuilt as m.u. trailers. Definitely a good use of an unusual prototype. Some of the original cars (those not rebuilt as m.u. trailers) actually were rebuilt as baggage - coaches as time progressed, probably helping to fill a need the line had.

One of the things that made Missouri Pacific's cars so unusual was that the two cars, MP 126 and 127, were modernized to match newer streamlined equipment. The only cars to have been done in this fashion.

The 2ft gauge WW&F in Maine had a combination RPO/smoker/ baggage car #6 "Taconnet" (named after an island in Maine's Great Pond I believe): http://wwfry.org/?page_id=296#combine-6

There has been some unofficial talk among museum members (I am a museum member but am only offering my view) of a replica car of #6 being a good choice for a future build, for several reasons: post office business is what enabled the WW&F to survive into the depression and would demonstrate how such business was handled, and also it has baggage doors that could be used for wheelchair access, otherwise difficult for 2ft gauge.

Here is a photo of DL&W #425 in RPO/Coach configuration. The car was later changed to coach/baggage configuration - the state in which it remains today. The 425 is regularly used in passenger service at Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wis.

http://www.midcontinent.org/equipment-roster/steel-passenger-cars/delaware-lackawanna-western-425/

Jeffrey Lentz

Jeff -

Thanks for the photo of DL&W #425 when it was still an RPO/coach. Being converted to a Combine makes it just one of the rather numerous examples of the coach/baggage configuration that exists in rail preservation. But at least the car survives!

PMC -

It would be great if the WW&F group eventually replicates car number 6 "Taconnet", however the baggage car partion of the car excludes it from this discussion.

Les

I get it now. I wonder if baggage cars were preferred as RPOs because it is easier to get the mail through the big doors?

Storage Mail cars, which often looked like baggage cars, were preferred for bagged, pre-sorted mail since the larger doors allowed for reasonably fast loading and unloading, but as far as sorting mail they never wanted a very large door because it would have made it easier for some to try and rob the mail cars. 30" wide doors were very typical.