Nostalgia & History > Sleeper Saturday: PRR #8585 Poplar Pike (A Mystery Slide!)

As part of its plan during the Great Depression to rebuild heavyweight sleepers with more updated floorplans to meet passenger preferences of the day (i.e., the "Betterment" cars), in February 1937 Pullman began rebuilding 12 section-1 drawing room-1 compartment (12S-1DR-1C) sleepers of Plan #2411C to 6 section-6 double bedroom (6S-6DB) sleepers of Plan #4060, all of which were given Poplar-series names.  During that year, a total of 32 cars were so rebuilt, between February and June.  The assignments of these rebuilt cars as follows:

6 cars were rebuilt for the Overland Limited in February (5 cars) and March (1 car), and were sold to either C&NW (2 cars) or SP (4 cars, as #8400-#8403) at the 12/31/1948 Pullman divestiture.

10 cars, including the Poplar Pike seen here, were rebuilt for the PRR in April (7 cars) and May (3 cars), and were sold to the Pennsy as #8579-#8588 at the divestiture.  Specifically, the Poplar Pike was rebuilt in May from the Plan #2411C sleeper Hardwick, which had been built in August 1923 in Lot #4697 for assignment to the general service pool.

10 cars were rebuilt for the NYC in March (1 car), April (1 car), May (4 cars), and June (4 cars), and were sold to the NYC as #11043-#11052 at the divestiture.

For the other 6 cars (all rebuilt in March), the original assignment(s) is/are not listed in the source material, but 4 of these 6 were sold to the SAL as #1210-#1213 at the divestiture, while the other 2 were retained by Pullman until being sold for scrap in 1964.

In 1939, Pullman supplemented the original 32 Poplar-series cars with an additional 58 cars, which instead of Plan #4060, were rebuilt to Plan #4084, between March and June of that year.  The difference in Plan number was due to a different arrangement of the sections and bedrooms.

10 of the 58 cars rebuilt in 1939 were also rebuilt for the PRR (all in June), and were sold to the Pennsy as #8589-#8598 at the divestiture.

Back to the Poplar Pike: when acquired by the Pennsy at the 12/31/1948 divestiture, like all heavyweight sleepers and parlors so acquired, it was assigned an accounting number, specifically #8585, which was not actually physically applied to the car.  Like the other heavyweight sleepers and parlors sold to the PRR at the divestiture, it was leased back to Pullman for operation, and remained under such lease until February 1964.  At the time it was withheld from Pullman lease, the Poplar Pike, along with 5 other of the Pennsy's 20 Poplar-series cars, was reassigned to the MofW department and was therefore given a MofW number.  Interestingly, the source material indicates that the MofW numbers given to these 6 cars were derived from their previous accounting numbers by simply adding "24" to the end; i.e., the Poplar Pike became #858524.  This was not the normal procedure for giving reassigned heavyweight parlors and sleepers MofW numbers, which were normally in the #49xxxx-series.  I currently have no further disposition info for the Poplar Pike.

Now for the mystery regarding this slide: it is a duplicate, and lacks any info on the mount about who the photographer was, where it was taken, or when.  The only clue as to where it might've been is the building seen in the right background.  I have several duplicate slides in my collection where that building can be seen, but so far none of these slides have had the location identified on the mounts, so it remains a mystery.  Depending on where this slide and the others were taken, this might in turn reveal potential photographer(s).  Does anybody recognize this building?  Thanks in advance!

EDIT: taken by Dick Kuelbs in Fort Worth, on Sunday, November 11th, 1962.

Here's a link to the previous post in this series, of Pullman Glen Island: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4224119

Here's a link to the following post in this series, of MKT Sunnyside: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4240725



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/19 23:57 by Rainier_Rails.

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That would have to be Ft Worth TX. Check this post.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3998611,3998611#3998611

Fascinating stuff! I hope you have a lot of source material that will keep these informative posts coming in the future. According to Wayner's "The Cars That Went to Mexico", 10 "Poplar" series cars were sold by Pullman to the NdeM in 1961 for continued use.  

What is the old T & P station used for these days?  Is it still there?

Ed

It is the first  TRE station for trains going east and of course, last for trains coming west from Dallas.  Other than the TRE the floors above the station floor are now condominiums.  At one time there was a restaurant in the station but I think it is closed now.

I have really enjoyed your very detailed series of passenger car histories.
I look forward to future posts.
Gary

Thanks to everyone for the replies!

DSapp Wrote:
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> That would have to be Ft Worth TX.
> Check this post.
>
> https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3998611,3998611#3998611

Thanks, D. Sapp, for identifying the location!  In that case, then this slide was most likely taken by Dick Kuelbs, who took a number of passenger car roster shots in places like Dallas, Fort Worth, and New Orleans over the years (he also took numerous shots of cabooses).  A number of Dick's slides of heavyweight Pullmans were recently published in a new book, "Railway Prototype Cyclopedia Volume 33, Pullman Heavyweight Sleepers, Part 1V", most likely including the one seen here, and the dates and locations for the slides were included in the book, but I have yet to purchase a copy, so until then the date for this slide remains unknown.  Does anybody here have a copy of this book and can check to see if this slide was included and what the date might have been?  (Regarding the slides included in the book, the cars are arranged alphabetically by name, and without an index.)  Thanks in advance!

BarstowRiff Wrote:
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> Fascinating stuff!
> I hope you have a lot of source material that will keep these informative posts coming in the future.
> According to Wayner's "The Cars That Went to Mexico",
> 10 "Poplar" series cars were sold by Pullman to the NdeM in 1961 for continued use.

Correct.  9 of these 10 cars had been sold to the NYC (actually, subsidiaries Big Four and Michigan Central) at the 12/31/1948 Pullman divestiture, and had been returned to Pullman (along with many of NYC's heavyweight Pullmans) when NYC cancelled their Pullman lease operating contracts in 1958.  The 10 cars were sold to NdeM between November 1961 and January 1962 (the majority in December).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/17 04:22 by Rainier_Rails.

gcm Wrote:
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> I have really enjoyed your very detailed series of
> passenger car histories.
> I look forward to future posts.
> Gary                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Agreed, and you can add me to that list.   AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Ted I looked through my PRR MOW files . There are no cars in the number series you mentioned. My files do not show any Poplar series cars in MOW service. ---   Ken 

These are great , please conitinue with more gems like this. BTW the late Dick Kuelbs shot a ton of car mug shots at this very site( T&P Ft Worth station) and yeah back to being a station these days.
I would move back Ft. Worth in a NY minute if it wasn''t so damn hot. It's a great town.
 

I thought it was the T&P station, but the Pennsylvania car threw me off.
It's a beautiful building.  They had a special event in the waiting room when I visited last November, so that was off limits.
They did have a nice sports bar in the concourse area though.

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Kemacprr Wrote:
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> Ted I looked through my PRR MOW files.
> There are no cars in the number series you mentioned.
> My files do not show any Poplar series cars in MOW service.
> Ken

Ken,

Thanks for checking!  Interesting that the sources I checked included that data, then.  Specifically, this data is included in Robert J. Wayner's "The Complete Roster of Heavyweight Pullman Cars" (Wayner Publications, 1985).  There are a total of 6 PRR Poplar-series cars which are listed as being transferred to the MofW department, and all are listed as receiving MofW numbers by adding "24" to the end of their accounting numbers.  The 6 cars were:

#8579 Poplar Glen to #857924.

#8585 Poplar Pike to #858524.

#8586 Poplar Point to #858624.

#8588 Poplar View to #858824.

#8592 Poplar Isle to #859224.

#8593 Poplar Range to #859324.