I am posting this here because the PRR "Colonial Crafts" was formerly owned by BIll Hatrick as the sleeping car in his PV stable. Bill Hatrick is a long-time member of the early Trainweb website Family (late 1990s era) :
PV Colonial Crafts on tail of Train 30--30th heading for Washington DC. Train led by AMTK 156 and AMTK 85. Colonial Crafts is a former Pennsylvania Railroad railcar. AMTK 156 is in heritage one livery . Red nosed paint. Train by Chesterson IN at 7:47PM CT 7-30-17
----Daniel
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Well. color #30 (30) "lucky" so far as getting out of the gate. While "believable" they passed Chesterton at the time noted, 747P, "not so lucky" otherwise, as they departed South Bend 76ML; arrived PGH 551A, or 46ML.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
The name, Colonial Crafts,, rang a bell. I checked my list of Pulllman sleeping cars I had during a couple years in college. I saw the car operating as a Parlor car on the NY-Washington Embassy in July 1964 in Wilmington, DE. A little reasearch shows it was built in 1949 as a sleeper- lounge and modified in May of 1964 to add parlor car seats. If the car is still in that configuration it would certainly work well for charter service.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Mr. Palmland, while I was aware that, in effort to retire the HWT Parlors regularly operated, PRR had assigned 6BR Lounge Cars such as "Colonial --" to the Corridor, I was unaware they had actually.reconfigured any.
I wonder if they just pulled the swivel seats from the HWT's, yanked the Lounge tables and chairs out, and put them in.
One must not forget that beyond the 64 "Congressional" cars, PRR did nothing for the Corridor until they rebuilt the 21RM "-- Inn" cars and acquired some 10-6 "-- College" cars from N&W. Both certainly looked "on the cheap" - especially the "-- College". They made no effort to align windows with the seats.
Oh well, if you don't like it, walk.
By contrast, the New Haven acquired 210 cars to reequip their end.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
GBN, Unfortunately this website indicates the seating was not modified. Too bad as HWT parlor seats would have been a great addition. Still, is there any doubt these would have been preferable to an Am I coach masquerading as a BC car.
But I'm intrigued by the use of these cars (there were 8 of them) with their 3DBR, DR, Lge configuration. My 1952 OGR shows them in use on Pittsburgher, American (to St. Louis) and the General (to Chicago). The General also had a 2 MBR, DBR, Lge/Observation.