Passenger Trains > What the hell was this? Via Google image search

I thought I knew passenger rail car history well, but never seen this before, it looks much like the few Pendulum cars built just before WWII. Must not have lasted long or made many trips.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=trains+source:life&imgurl=8150a809fa775855

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If you blow the picture up, there's a heavyweight car, a lightweight car & steam engine (?) in front of the "what the hell was this" car. It even has an old fashioned marker lamp too. Then there's a sign that says "ESCONDIDO JCT" to left of train. Santa Fe was known to use steam engines on the San Diegans in the early '50. It will be very interesting to know about the history of this articulated car. A demo for their later pendulum car?

Maybe a Pendulum equipped Passenger Car?

The two cars were the Pendulum demonstrators and never entered service on any RR they were strictly experimentaland were later scrapped. There were three Pendulum cars built that were full size cars and one each was sold to AT&SF, CB&Q and GN. Always found it interesting that the three owners of the Pendulum cars are now part of the BNSF.
The AT&SF car was assigned to the San Diegans for most of it's existance.
The CB&Q car was the only one named it was SILVER PENDULUM and as far as I have been able to determine it was never operated in Zephyr service but ran in secondary trains and its last service was behind one of the CB&Q doodlebugs out of St. Joseph, MO.
The GN car was assigned to the heavyweight Puget Sounders originally between Seattle and Vancouver. Later it became extra car in Internationals as needed and was often times assigned to the GN Pool Train between Seattle and Portland.

Al - in - Stockton

Here is the full article from Time Monday, Jan. 24, 1938.

Sporty Cortlandt T. Hill, 31-year-old, stockbroking grandson of the late great Railroader James Jerome Hill, was skiing down hills at Sun Valley, Idaho, last week with his host, Railroader W. Averell Harriman. Between slides he tried to interest the Union Pacific's able board chairman not in some of his stocks but in his two new railroad cars.

Back in Inglewood, Calif. Cortlandt Hill had a pair of plywood passenger cars which resembled ordinary units of a streamlined duralumin train, but which were mounted on their running gear in a manner which he and several partners claimed was brand-new for railroad cars. Invented by William Van Dorn and Dr. F. C. Lindvall of California Institute of Technology, who have been working on the cars for the past two years in an abandoned Northrup Aviation hangar, the coaches are sprung on a "pendulum" principle by which four heavy vertical coil springs above each of the car's four axles fit into pockets in the body of the car (see cut). As the top of these is above the coach's low centre of gravity, the tendency of the body roll on curves is inward instead of outward as on an ordinary car. Airplane fashion, the car banks into the curve, vastly increasing both comfort and steadiness. Lateral and horizontal restraint of the body is achieved by rubberized links between the inside end of the trucks and the lower portion of the car's body. Result is a full-size passenger coach whose floor is 30 in. above the rails instead of 4¼ ft.; whose roof is u ft. instead of 14 ft. high. Weight, if made of duralumin, is 50,000 Ib.—40% less than present streamlined cars.

Most interested railroad in the experimental coaches is Santa Fe, which loaned ten miles of sidetrack and ,an engine for the trial runs. To show them to other U. S. roads the designers plan to install two Ford V-8 engines to enable the coaches to cruise about the country under their own power. Delighted with the steadiness of the coaches during tests at 50 m.p.h., Sponsor Hill—whose previous railroad experience consists of three weeks in the Great Northern shops at St. Paul during childhood—pronounced his cars "jounce-less."

Looks like a stealth passenger car to me. The car looks very modern but per operating rules in effect at that time they duly hung markers on the rear of the train which don't quite fit with the modern appearance of the car.

Looks like the rail version of the ferry boat Kalakala. For those not from the NW the MV Kalakala is a former ferry that operated on Puget Sound from 1935 until her retirement in 1967.

Kalakala was notable for her unique streamlined superstructure, art deco styling, and luxurious amenities. The vessel was a popular attraction for locals and tourists, and was voted second only to the Space Needle in popularity among visitors to Seattle during the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The ship is known as the world's first streamlined vessel for its unique art deco styling.

Well, obviously some info is added above about the car in question (I don't know anything about it personally)

The train itself looks like a Westbound (Compass North) Santa Fe San Diegan at Escondido Junction in Oceanside. The street in the foreground, at least nowadays, would be Oceanside Blvd.

Heavyweights and Steam on the Surfline, and it's not an excursion!

jaanfo
If the train is WB (north) the wye track would be going to the right. The wye track in this picture is going left. Thus the train is EB. Besides if that road was O'side BL you would see both legs of the wye. There is a Crosswaith St. that might have crossed the main back when that picture was taken.

BNSFCajon Wrote:
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> jaanfo
> If the train is WB (north) the wye track would be
> going to the right. The wye track in this picture
> is going left. Thus the train is EB. Besides if
> that road was O'side BL you would see both legs of
> the wye. There is a Crosswaith St. that might have
> crossed the main back when that picture was taken.


Hmm, didn't notice that rail off to the side before (I'm very observant, eh?). The sign, while it could have been moved across the rails in 60 years, was posted south (compass West) of the rail when I started. It was also just north of the grade crossing at Oceanside Blvd, from which you Cannot see they wye when looking north. That was how I figured what I did.

RetiredGal9 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like the rail version of the ferry boat
> Kalakala. For those not from the NW the MV
> Kalakala is a former ferry that operated on Puget
> Sound from 1935 until her retirement in 1967.
>
> Kalakala was notable for her unique streamlined
> superstructure, art deco styling, and luxurious
> amenities. The vessel was a popular attraction for
> locals and tourists, and was voted second only to
> the Space Needle in popularity among visitors to
> Seattle during the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The
> ship is known as the world's first streamlined
> vessel for its unique art deco styling.


Kalakala was originally a Key System ferry, the Peralta. She was caught in the arson-caused Key System pier fire of May 1933 and burned to the waterline. The hull was sold to Puget Sound Navigation Co. which built an all-new, streamlined superstructure and rechristened the ferry.

The Kalakala still survives to this day, eighty-two years after first entering service as the Peralta and thirty-one years after being retired from Puget Sound ferry operations as the Kalakala. Several successive owners have had plans to rehabilitate her but nothing has yet come to fruition.

A little follow up to the three cars built for RR use by Pacific Railway Equipment.
The second Pendulum car delivered was 1100 a 56-seat Chair car to the AT&SF in November 1941. This car as I previously mentioned spent its operating career as an extra car for the San Diegans. It was off the roster by 1970.
The second Pendulum car delivered was the 6000 SILVER PENDULUM to the CB&Q a 60-seat Chair car. As I previously mentioned this car operated in secondary trains and last known operation was behind one of the CB&Q doodlebugs out of St. Joseph, MO.
The third and final Pendulum car delivered was 999 a 68-seat Chair car to the Great Northern. As I previously mentioned the car was first assigned to the Puget Sounders and after WW II was repainted EB colors and operated as an extra in the Internationals and the Seattle- Portland pool train. The GN sometime in the 1950's squared off the windows of the 999 and removed the Pendulum suspension the only road to do so.
It is believed that the CB&Q car may have survived until the BN merger although never renumbered, but the GN car was not around for the merger. I was fortunate to have ridden all three when in service.
And yes I remember the Washington State Ferry Kalakala quite well on two different routes, It served longest on the Seattle - Bremerton run and later operated between Port Angeles and Victoria. I belive when it was retired from ferry service it was sold to become a Cannery in Alaska. I have heard they are now trying to preserve the vessel somewhere on Puget Sound but do not know the latest effort in this regard.

Al - in - Stockton

Very interesting discussion...as mentioned previously, I was aware and up on the three PRE cars produced, but this earlier test bed artic unit was a new one on me.

Appears to have been influenced by the most common streamline designs of the time, being the artic UP City trains. By size and carbody design it looks a dead ringer for the City of Salina except for the window shapes.

Was it really built of plywood? If so it wouldn't have held together long.

Found a link to the patent designs for the pendulum suspension, good drawings showing the tilt features. Dry but interesting reading for the mechanical-minded:

http://www.prototrains.com/patents/2225242.pdf

Thanks guys for a good thread

While attending Hyde Park School-4th grade-I saw this equipment
go by on the AT&SF Harbor District towards Inglewood in 1938.
The Los Angeles Examiner stated it was primarily constructed
of plywood..If you look closely to the combine car you can a
typical Santa Fe outside channel frame...

Where's Duck Dodgers when you need him?