MT 12-1 "Parlor" cars: WTH?

[Cajonpassfan]

A while back I bought several undec, unassembled 12-1 Pullmans, figuring it was the most popular HW sleeper that I could use on many trains. Today, I started assembling one and realized their boxes are labeled "12-1 Parlor car", rather than "sleeper" but in actuality, they are identical to the 28-1 parlor cars. WTH? I thought I bought 12-1 sleepers, but ended up with, useless to me on a western road, day-use parlors. Are these mislabeled boxes, or what am I missing??
Anybody interested in some mislabeled 28-1 parlor cars, cheap?
Otto K.

[bbussey]

the 143 series is the 28-1 parlor.  The parlor has the wider clerestory.  I don't remember if the interior properly contain the swivel chairs.  But the wide clerestory is the telltale feature that distinguishes the parlors from the other MTL heavyweights.

[thomasjmdavis]

I think the mislabeled cars were the first run, or at least, were the first ones I bought. My "12-1" parlors were cut and pasted to become Monon #75.  Also painted up some that were correctly labeled as stand ins for GTW rebuilds and swapped in coach seats (in this case left the exterior as is, but to be accurate to prototype, should have rearranged windows to remove drawing room, ala the Monon car). 

[Mike C]

 I may be interested in them . How much ?

[garethashenden]

I'm probably interested.

While we're talking about these cars; Does the Parlor car come with two different rooves? The ones pictured here have curved sides for most of the length but some more recent release have a clerestory roof instead. To further confuse things, both seem to have the same part number for the undecorated model. I'm not imagining that am I?

[nickelplate759]

I think the A/C duct is only on one side of the car.

George

[Maletrain]

Maybe Joe can explain this better, but I note that the 3 boxes do indeed have 3 different numbers on them.  The middle one, looks like it is numbered and labeled as a parlor car, but with a 12-1 rather than a 28-1 designation.  While it seems plausible that a 12-1 sleeper could be converted to a parlor car by some roads, for this particular car, that seems incompatible with the fact that the window arrangement is the same as the 28-1 parlor car.  It is hard to tell from the pictures what the interiors of the various cars really look like, except that there appears to possibly be some differences between the two cars shown in the post. The roof s definitely "MTL parlor" not "MTL sleeper."

So, my best guess is that somebody at MTL misprinted the labels, rather than tried to mess with the cars. Joe?

Some roads did change these 28-1 parlor cars to coach seating, so maybe you could use them that way?

BTW, is that a lavatory vent above the vestibule on the left end of the parlor car in the picture?  Shouldn't that be more toward the centr of the car?

[thomasjmdavis]

I have Parlor cars that are labeled "28-1 Parlor" (28 seats, 1 drawing room) and a couple mis-labeled "12-1 Parlor."  All cars are the same, interchangeable parts, same roof, same windows, same interiors.  Just a label misprint.

Nickelplate got it right- roof has AC duct on one side only (prototypically correct, at least for many AC'ed cars).  So from one side, it looks like a clerestory, from the other, it resembles a balloon roof. 

The interior represents 28 individual swivel chairs and a drawing room.  All the MT sleepers, coaches, parlors have appropriate interiors (the 10-1-2 is different from the 12-1, for instance).  Baggage and horse cars do not have interiors.  Unfortunately, there is no interior in the RPO or mail baggage, a surprise given the attention given to other cars.

On Maletrain's lavatory vent question, the lavatories in the car modeled were at the ends of the car, plus one in the drawing room located near one end.  So, I think the vent is correctly located, but will admit that ventilation within the car is outside my areas of expertise.  My presumption would be that the various details were located based on a diagram or photos of a particular car of the series.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks Tom, that makes a lot of sense, and is consistent with my cars; a label misprint. I think I'll acquire new 12-1's and keep these for kitbash fodder. Maybe one coul become a 14-section tourist car?
Otto K.

[thomasjmdavis]

Another possibility would be troop cars or work service, depending on era. ATSF bought a bunch of old Pullman sleepers (most converted parlors and 12-1 for use in troop movements in WWII ) in the early 50s and converted them to bunk and office cars.  There is a section in the Santa Fe Sleeping Car book on these cars.

Tom D.

[Cajonpassfan]

Well, I got a very nice email from Ben at MT with an offer to send me three interiors and roofs free of charge. Good PR and a nice follow up. It will all become kitbasher fodder, we'll see where it takes me...
Otto K.

[Santa Fe Guy]

That's great service from M/T Otto.
Rod.

[jmlaboda]

BTW, is that a lavatory vent above the vestibule on the left end of the parlor car in the picture?  Shouldn't that be more toward the centr of the car?

The lavatory isn't at the center of the car so why would a vent be?  They were adjacent to the vestibules just as they were for most other car types (sleeper - lounges being the exception).

[jmlaboda]

ATSF bought a bunch of old Pullman sleepers (most converted parlors and 12-1 for use in troop movements in WWII ) in the early 50s and converted them to bunk and office cars.

You would be hard pressed to prove the statement that ATSF bought parlor cars converted to Tourist sleepers... it just didn't happen.  What they did buy were 14 Section and 16 Section sleepers en masse which easily could be mistaken for parlor cars, which were quite similar.  Some did get converted to Troop sleepers and others converted to Hospital ward cars but none went to the Santa Fe after the war... at least none that I could find in the Pullman Car Construction Records.

[Maletrain]

The lavatory isn't at the center of the car so why would a vent be?  They were adjacent to the vestibules just as they were for most other car types (sleeper - lounges being the exception).

Jerry, you seem to misunderstand my question.  If you look at the picture in the post, there is a vent that appears to be over the vestibule.  I don't think there is anything to vent in a vestibule.  Next to the vestibule is a lavatory, over which is where I think the vent would really be located.  That is a little more toward the center of the car from the vertibule, not in the center of the car.  See what I am asking?