Nostalgia & History > Great Western baggage cars

Chicago Great Western bought 3 streamlined baggage cars from Pullman Standard in 1948. They were numbered 80-82. Near the end of CGW passenger srvice after merger with CNW they went to Great Northern in 1965 as their 277-279. These were the only truly streamlined cars CGW ever got with their very limited passenger service. I found a Walthers N-Gauge model of one on eBay and without really trying won it. I do not model CGW or GN but do some other mid-Western roads and eastern roads passenger service especially including mail & express trains.

Here are two questions re: these cars.

1. During their service lives, in CGW paint, did they ever wander off line into the consists of other trains, probably mostly mail and express trains?

2. The only CGW reference book I have is a paperback by Hastings and it only has one CGW passenger train picture, which does include one of these cars, but it is lettered 'Great Western' not 'Chicago Great Western' as my pullman green model is. But it is a nice looking model. Strangely, in my 1959 Official Passenger Railway Equipment Register the CGW is not even listed, but in my only other copy, in 1966, the GN car numbers show.

Thanks for all input john in DE.

John, it's always possible those cars wandered offline as they were usually the dedicated REA express cars(trailer) on the #2-3 Chi-Omaha run(doodlebug), and occasionally on #13-14 Minn/Omaha and #5-6 Minn-KC runs until getting sold off to GN. The CGW had plenty of surplus HW Baggage cars anyway, think they were bought because they're lightweights and the road didn't want to waste an F unit on #2-3 having a perfectly good set of motor cars on a two car run. Think if going offline went on one of the many mail trains UP and CB&Q launched west from Omaha and KC, or on the GN out of M/StP as those roads' express cars showed up on the CGW runs at the same time we're talking about, 1950-67.

One other more esoteric point, the CGW bought two 1938 Hiawatha coaches from CMStP&P in the '61 so technically speaking the PS Bagg's weren't the only "streamlined" cars the "Great Weedy" had. BTW , I believe "Chicago" was deleted from the letter boards long before WW2.
Hope this helps
Pete



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/14 19:48 by Atlpete.

Also one other thing, I have never seen a service shot of these cars in Pullman green, only the early two tone Orange and maroon/brown and then solid maroon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/14 19:37 by Atlpete.

CGW purchased the light weight baggage cars to use as trailers on the Oelwein- Chicago motor car run. Of course they found their way into the consists of the KC- Mlps and Omaha- Mlps trains as time. I don't have a consist of but I am told that one of them was seen in the coach yard at Los Angeles but I don't know what year. The CGW baggage cars were never in the the Pullman Green , and were lettered Chicago Great Western when first delivered and lettered Great Western during the Deramus Era. Pick up a copy of Gene Green's Color Guide to Freight an Passenger Eq.

Easy way to see what they looked like - the Walthers HO P-S plain sided baggage car is that car.

A kind thanks to all of you for your corrections. And a very happy Thanksgiving to all of you and your families.

If the three cars were never in Pullman Green I'm upset at Walthers for doing the N -gauge models that way rather than the correct maroon and other schemes you suggest. Walthers should know better! They did not do proper research.

But, I do have some CBQ stuff and expanded on it after I bought the first Kato CZ set. I had to have it as I rode that train to the first stupid US war on the Asian continent in 1967. When the CZ stopped at Omaha in the middle of the night I went out to check and two CBQ dark green streamlined baggage cars were added to the train. One was set off at Lincoln and the other went thru to Denver. I do not have the CBQ Morning Sun equipment book, and do not know if it would show these dark green CBQ streamlind baggae/storage cars. I have the numbers. And Walthers, at least in N-Gauge, did not reproduce them. So maybe with time I can find a way to remove the Great Western lettering and make them CBQ with decals.

Too bad; it would be fun to have a CGW bag car on my model railroad, and I am not a rivet counter, it just has to be close, but green versus maroon is a big difference! Thanks.