Next MTL heavyweight bodystyle announced

[CBQ Fan]

Diner's are a crap shoot to me; diners may be the most individualistic passenger cars around; it often seems that no two are alike. I'd be curious is there was a predominant dining car design that multiple roads had....Jerry; any guidance here ?

Did Pullman have their own fleet that would have been standard for railroads to use?  I am not picky on the details but am looking for the look of quality heavyweights.  Streamliners are my area of specialty for details.

[Puddington]

The coaches are going to be the big thing; especially the single window version as that will fill a huge hole in the roster. That said; I wonder what prototype they will choose..... If they followed Walthers on the Observation, is there a pattern here ? Has Walthers issued an HO single window. Branchline has a nice one but I wonder who's proto they'd choose............?

[Puddington]

Did Pullman have their own fleet that would have been standard for railroads to use?  I am not picky on the details but am looking for the look of quality heavyweights.  Streamliners are my area of specialty for details.

Once again Jerry could give us the goods here but I do not think that Pullman operated a large fleet of dining cars in North America; they did have a European arm that operated dining cars in the 30's but I don't think it was as large in North America.....I stand to be corrected on this however..........

[Packer]

as opposed to say, open coal hoppers....right ? ;D

Some of us perfer coal gondolas (trying to amass a fleet of thrall gons, I have 1)

[Mark5]

Once again Jerry could give us the goods here but I do not think that Pullman operated a large fleet of dining cars in North America; they did have a European arm that operated dining cars in the 30's but I don't think it was as large in North America.....I stand to be corrected on this however..........

The railroads I'm familiar with operated their own dining cars. Joe did mention last April a possible dining car of unspecified prototype:

The next series is not set in stone yet, but I do have my preferences...Single window Commuter coach, Business car with or without a deck...still noodling around that one.  A full size Baggage car or some sort of combine and a fourth yet to be established.  I think we are good with the sleepers...possibly a diner car?  Good to see the positive reception, makes selling new tooling to management a lot easier.  I have been working on my SP consist for a few weeks now, hopefully I can post some shots soon.  The further we get into this series the easier it will be to start mixing and matching tooling to fill in the gaps in prototypes.

Cheers

Joe
MTL

[seusscaboose]

Take pictures........ ;D

i am envisioning something like this for Lee
http://www.westernrailimages.com/Nickel-Plate-Road-New-York/Nickel-Plate-Road/7190336_wkbfS#461723418_tFiim-L-LB

[Puddington]

i am envisioning something like this for Lee
http://www.westernrailimages.com/Nickel-Plate-Road-New-York/Nickel-Plate-Road/7190336_wkbfS#461723418_tFiim-L-LB

Explain it to him   S   L   O   W - L    E   E............................ ;D

[jmlaboda]

In hospital due to heart attack Saturday... will get back once I am at home.

[SkipGear]

Wow Jerry, sorry to hear that. Take it easy and get well soon. Toy trains can wait.

[GaryHinshaw]

Oh my.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery Jerry!!

-Gary

[John]

In hospital due to heart attack Saturday... will get back once I am at home.

Woah .. get well ... I wish you a speedy recovery ..

[csolivais1979]

In hospital due to heart attack Saturday... will get back once I am at home.

Just went through this with my mother-in-law.  May your recovery be as speedy as her's has been.

[Puddington]

Do what they say Jerry and you'll be back on top soon...thinking of you; stay well !

[CBQ Fan]

In hospital due to heart attack Saturday... will get back once I am at home.

Get well soon!!  Take care of yourself, look forward to a healthy return!

[jmlaboda]

Well, feeling better day by day and having a lot of time on my hands I thought I would tackle the idea of Pullman owned dining cars since this has been brought up.  Thanks for all the well wishes... I am still kicking, albeit a little weaker than I have been.

Two things to keep in mind is that 1) Pullman made more off of sleeping cars, parlors and lounges, and 2) several of the known Pullman plans that were sold to a variety of railroads were identical to the ones that became a part of Pullman's fleet.

Below are some notes I have been able to compile while sitting here in my hospital room.

Pullman did, in fact, have some of their own diners as a part of their lease fleet, but they were small in number (22 built new and 6 rebuilt from Plan 2412 16-section sleepers.  These cars represented three plan types (and for Plan 3954, three subclasses) with some not staying in the Pullman fleet long while others remained under Pullman ownership until the early-40s.  Pullman also had one twin-unit heavyweight diner but what happened to this pair is unclear and it is difficult to tell what happened to them after the two cars were sold to ACL... I will check once I get home to see if I can track them down.

One distinction these cars had in comparison to other Pullman-built diners was that they had paired windows in the dining room area and some had paired windows in the hallway opposite the kitchen as well.  This feature made them rather distinctive in comparison to later cars that had larger, single windows in the dining area (as on the Walthers model).  I am unable to access some of the sights that likely has information on the three plans involved but once I can I will do some digging to see what I can come up with as far as floor plans go.

The first group built were for Plan 3954, which were numbered 188 - 193.  Built in July '24 cars 188 - 190 were sold to KCS 21May29 while the other three, 191 - 193 were sold to ACL on 27Mar37.

The second and third group were built to Plan 3952 which were numbered 1 - 16, with cars 1 and 2 being built in Dec. 1924 while additional cars of this plan slowly were added to the roster in Nov. 1925 (numbers 6, 13, 14 and 15) and Dec. 1925 (cars 3 - 5, 7 - 12 and 16).  The earliest of the cars to be sold were cars 5 - 12 and 16, which went to Erie between 1927 and 1030.  One of these cars, 16, holds the distinction of being painted crimson red and used on the Cardinal's Train< of 1926 with NYC lettering and the name Saint May of the Lake in June '26 and restored to its Pullman appearance in July of the same year.  Car 15 was sold to the New Haven, 27May36 while car 14 is listed as going to PWC and I suspect that this is Pullman Car Works but could be wrong, on 27Oct36.  The ACL bought five of these cars from Pullman between March and May 1937 (1 - 4, and 13).

The last group of dining cars were rebuilt from Plan 2412 16 Section sleepers to Plan 4004.  Car 17 was rblt. in Nov '29 while 18 - 22 were rblt. in Dec. of the same year, from sleepers Morristown, Sacile, Junin, Ausable, Highmore and Wanakena respectively.  Of these 17 - 19 were sold to the NH 21Apr36, 20 and 21 to NH 1May35 and 22 being sold to the ACL 2Dec42 after being named Symphony in 1936.

It will be curious to see just which dining car MicroTrains will choose to produce but it is fair to say that these were not the only cars built to these plans.  I know that SOU and subsidiaries, as well as some roads that operated through trains with SOU, had some cars built to Plan 3952 and three built to Plan 7004A (the prototype for then Walthers car) and I am sure more prototypes can be found once the MT model is out.  As it stands right now I don't see much point in running down what other roads used these plans but once we can learn more about the diner I will see what I can do in that regard.

"Pullman Plan 3959."

"Ice or mechanical A/C?  Ice would be nice."

Ice would be a good bet since that was what PRR preferred and most of the cars that went to PRR were not AC'ed at the time they went to the line.  Pullman Mechanical - Brine tank and ATSF steam ejector systems were used on many of the cars that were AC'ed by Pullman.  Given that they have already done the Mechanical with Brine tank on three of the already released cars they may just decide to stay with that for the observations as well.