Nostalgia & History > Chessie Steam Special question

During the celebration of B&O's 150th Anniversary, they had aquired XX number of passenger cars to be pulled by the #2101 ex-Reading, "Chessie Steam Special" locomotive. Within those passenger cars, painted with the Chessie System color scheme, there was at least one with an oddly designed construction, most noticeably with its windows. Underneath those windows there were three lines of text. First, fairly small, second, large, and, at the bottom, a long line of words/characters.

My question is: What words/characters were in the text? If you know, I would really appriciate it if you could please write them in which they were presented in, including the lines
(Celebrating...
B&O...
and so on...)

Matthew



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/16 22:48 by Cumberland.

Which car was it, an open window coach? an air condition coach? a special car such as food service? crew car? photo car? lounge car? observation car?

 Hi
I think I have the wording and also made a model close to it
I will have to dig out my pics and model and check it out
Tom Boylan

I deleted my earlier response when I found this picture. There appears to be some lettering under the windows of the second car in the train that might be the one you are looking for, but I have no idea what was lettered there.  The car is a rebuilt former Army Hospital car.

The photo is (obviously) the westbound CSS crossing the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.

Art House



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/16 08:53 by aehouse.

---

Art House,

Thanks for trying! And, YES, that's the car I am talking about. Beautiful photo!

Matthew

aehouse Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I deleted my earlier response when I found this
> picture. There appears to be some lettering under
> the windows of the second car in the train that
> might be the one you are looking for, but I have
> no idea what was lettered there.  The car is a
> rebuilt former Army Hospital car.
>
> The photo is (obviously) the westbound CSS
> crossing the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
>
> Art House



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/16 11:18 by Cumberland.

Cumberland Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> During the celebration of B&O's 150th Anniversary, they had aquired XX number of passenger cars to be pulled by the #2101 ex-Reading, "Chessie Steam
> Special" locomotive. Within those passenger cars, painted with the Chessie System color scheme, there was at least one with an oddly designed
> construction, most noticeably with its windows.Underneath those windows there were three lines of text. First, fairly small, second, large, and, at
> the bottom, a long line of words/characters.
>
> My question is: What words/characters were in the text? If you know, I would really appriciate it if you could please write them in which they were
> presented in, including the lines 

>(Celebrating...
> B&O...
> and so on...)

"Celebrating
B&O's Sesquicentennial
And the 150th Anniversary of American Railroading." ("151st" in 1978)

The car was West Virginia Railway Maintenance Authority 89545, built as an Army hospital car in 1952. It was later traded to Chessie, and apparently it still serves in CSX's business fleet.

Johnacraft posted:
The car was West Virginia Railway Maintenance Authority 89545, built as an Army hospital car in 1952. It was later traded to Chessie, and apparently it still serves in CSX's business fleet.

This car was used as the crew dormitory car,  it allowed the crew to live with the train.
It had living quarters, shower/restroom, small lounge area and a fully equipped kitchen.
 Kinda tight,but not a bad arrangement.
 

Thanks a lot, Johnacraft and MontourMan! That information means a lot to me. I never would have guest that it would still be in service, considering what happened to the rest and 2101.

Matthew



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/16 16:05 by Cumberland.

So that's why I see it having been used on so many of Chessie System's excursions.

Matthew

>MontourMan Wrote:

> This car was used as the crew dormitory car,  it
> allowed the crew to live with the train.
> It had living quarters, shower/restroom, small
> lounge area and a fully equipped kitchen.
>  Kinda tight,but not a bad arrangement.
>  

Cumberland Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So that's why I see it having been used on so many
> of Chessie System's excursions.
>
> Matthew
>
> >MontourMan Wrote:
>
> > This car was used as the crew dormitory car, 
> it
> > allowed the crew to live with the train.
> > It had living quarters, shower/restroom, small
> > lounge area and a fully equipped kitchen.
> >  Kinda tight,but not a bad arrangement.
> >  
​That car was purchased by Chessie and after the Steam Safety Express Train pulled by Ex-C&O 614 finished operations in 1981, the car was sent to the shops and rebuilt with an open platform on it and renamed the "West Virginia."  Yes, it is still used by CSX as part of their business trains.  There have been some photos of the car on here but I do not remember who had them and shared them with us.  Go to www:rrpicturearchives.net and look at the photo taken by Chuck Zeiler.  His photo shows the West Virginia when it first came from the Chessie shop with the new rear platform.  The car was painted in the Chessie System colors except that where the Vermilion Color was, this car received a green stripe, and as far as I know, this was the only car to operate in that paint scheme.  Today it is in the standard CSX colors.
John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/16 08:07 by ClubCar.