Help ID this baggage car; MoPac?

[Cajonpassfan]

I recently came across this image by Ed VanNordeck of Santa Fe's Grand Canyon Limited taken at Corona, Ca in the late forties.
I model various versions of this train, and always look for ways to include "foreign" road head end cars in my consists.
Can anyone here identify the baggage car behind the engine, or better yet, post a color photo of it?
Given the interchange patterns of the era, I'm thinking it's possibly a Missouri Pacific car? Or maybe a Texas & Pacific car?
The photo is interesting in its own right, with the crew about to receive orders on the fly, with the fireman leaning out of the big Northern.
Feedback appreciated!
Otto K.

[thomasjmdavis]

I think you are on the right track  Otto.  That car is likely MP or T&P.  #7 & 8 carried MP cars frequently (according to what I've read).  And I would think that would mean that those cars might also show up occasionally on 3+4 or 23/24/123/124 occasionally.

In Fred Frailey's Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists, he shows MP cars carrying baggage and express were on 7&8 moving between LA and St. Louis in 1946.  In 53-54, this car was joined by another that transferred to MP at KC and went as far as Pittsburgh.  Not sure of the route east of St. Louis.  A guess would be that SF and MP pooled cars, and perhaps an eastern road as well, for the service to Pittsburgh. 

the "gmbus" site shows some of the cars interchanged with MP going as far as NYC.  Their consist for #7 in Oct. 1953 shows a St. Louis - LA sealed express box via MP to KC, then to LA, a NY city to LA storage mail via MP St. Louis -KC then to LA, and one more storage mail, St. Louis to LA over MP to KC, then on to LA.  The 2 storage mail are listed as "baggage*".  The "*" indicates "may be a foreign car"- so likely MP, or perhaps NYC or PRR for the car to/from New York.

https://santafe.gmbus.com/

T&P express cars are listed in the consist info on the California Special (which interchanged cars with 23/24 at Clovis) in the 1950s, as shown in the article on those trains in the recent issue of the Warbonnet.  If I read the consists correctly, the cars listed moved between cities in Texas, but who knows?

Finally, here is a shot of an MP car on the Fast Mail circa 1963- so some of this service lasted a long time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041225143135/http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Foreign/MP/MP.htm

listings of foreign cars on Santa Fe more generally-

https://web.archive.org/web/20041211073848/http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Foreign/ForeignCars.htm

[Sokramiketes]

Almost certainly an MP car.  My only slight hesitation is what it appears to have for partial skirting.

The Wheels of Time model is the T&P car and close.  But for reference, here's some of the HO Walther's model. 



I'll try to dig out the MP historical society article tonight to see if other photos match that center skirting.

Here was a balloon roof and skirted example modeled from that article.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks guys, very much!
Tom, I've seen most of the info before, but it's nice to have it all in one place. You're obviously better organized than I am Thanks for the useful writeup, too.

Mike, I do own the T&P car by WoT, it's a very nice model, see below. I bought it understanding that by my modeling period (circa '49), Texas & Pacific was almost almost entirely owned by MoPac so I'm thinking that car could have easily ended up on Santa Fe rails. It would be nice to have a confirmation. The proto pic in the OP seems to show a traditional roof, and the area below the doors almost looks like the frame has been strengthened under the weak spot in the span? If you do find other photos, I'd be interested. Thanks again!
Otto

[thomasjmdavis]

Thanks guys, very much!
Tom, I've seen most of the info before, but it's nice to have it all in one place. You're obviously better organized than I am Thanks for the useful writeup, too.

Mike, I do own the T&P car by WoT, it's a very nice model, see below. I bought it understanding that by my modeling period (circa '49), Texas & Pacific was almost almost entirely owned by MoPac so I'm thinking that car could have easily ended up on Santa Fe rails. It would be nice to have a confirmation. The proto pic in the OP seems to show a traditional roof, and the area below the doors almost looks like the frame has been strengthened under the weak spot in the span? If you do find other photos, I'd be interested. Thanks again!
Otto

[thomasjmdavis]

There are a few photos on our late friend Jerry Laboda's site-

http://passcarphotos.rypn.org/Indices/MP1.htm

Most in the gray-blue scheme had balloon roofs and some skirting (or reinforcement), but it does appear that the skirting varied car to car, and that some of the balloon roofs appear to be "modernized" clerestory. Also several photos appear to be of the cars late in life, so I would suspect that clerestory roofs were more common in 1949 than in 1969. There are also some "as built" photos with clerestory roofs among the links on that page.

[nickelplate759]

Hard to be sure, but the car in the photo at the top of the post appears to have a clerestory roof.

[thomasjmdavis]

Otto- have you seen this article? (MP, not T&P, and HO, but thought you might be interested)
https://sfrhms.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/walthers_mp_hwt_baggage.pdf

[Cajonpassfan]

There are a few photos on our late friend Jerry Laboda's site-

http://passcarphotos.rypn.org/Indices/MP1.htm

Most in the gray-blue scheme had balloon roofs and some skirting (or reinforcement), but it does appear that the skirting varied car to car, and that some of the balloon roofs appear to be "modernized" clerestory. Also several photos appear to be of the cars late in life, so I would suspect that clerestory roofs were more common in 1949 than in 1969. There are also some "as built" photos with clerestory roofs among the links on that page.

I think you maybe right about the timing of the "betterment" roofs. The OP pic seems to have the original roof.
Thanks to pointing to Jerry LaBoda's  pages...I do miss him. What a legacy he left for us.
Otto

[squirrelhunter]

The Summer 2002 MPHS Eagle magazine has the July 27-28 1958 consists for KC-STL.

Nameless mail and express train 14 (eastbound) has ATSF 3730 bound for Pittsburgh PA. It also has ATSF 3745 for St. Louis. The magazine credits these as baggage cars built by ATSF in 1956.

On the next day, the car was a PRR X29 in the Missouri River Eagle #6.

You're probably good with T&P car, T&P and MP equipment mixed a lot on the St. Louis to Texarkana/Dallas/El Paso trains, where the routes were sharedbetween T&P and MP. So it's possible that MP just grabbed a T&P car at St. Louis to send west that day, especially since ATSF could have sent it back east on the California Special to Sweetwater on its way to Texarkana. Also no one makes MP passenger car decals (as discussed in the MP Colorado Eagle thread) so that's an issue as well.

One side note, Texarkana was a major railway mail sorting point, so a variety of foreign road baggage and express boxcars show up in the consists of the MP mail and secondary trains both coming and going.

[Cajonpassfan]

Otto- have you seen this article? (MP, not T&P, and HO, but thought you might be interested)
https://sfrhms.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/walthers_mp_hwt_baggage.pdf

No I haven't, thank you Tom!
Thanks @squirrelhunter too...
Fun stuff, Otto

[squirrelhunter]

No I haven't, thank you Tom!
Thanks @squirrelhunter too...
Fun stuff, Otto

Thanks Otto!