Nostalgia & History > You’re gonna get left behind!

This is your basic shot of a business car tacked onto the rear end of an ordinary train. But there is almost always an interesting story behind a photo like this. And this shot by Tony Fey (‘mopacrr’) has not one, but two interesting tidbits behind it. First is a quick background on the car. It was originally a C&EI sleeper named “Loblolly Pine”. The car was acquired by Autoliner Corp in the late 1960s*. In turn the Mop purchased it from Autoliner Corp in the mid-1970s*. It was freshly out of the shop in Sedalia when Tony got this shot. Take a closer look at the drumhead: It wasn’t very long, before it was replaced with the newer Eagle buzz saw drumhead.

A second, more subtle story involves Tony himself. He was the rear brakeman on this train. When it stopped he dashed out to get get a shot. But the train started moving again, unexpectedly. Tony admits that he narrowly averted getting left behind. But to accomplish this he had to sprint just to get back on the caboose. I had something similar happen to me one afternoon in Belle Plaine, KS in the early 1980s. And this is actually the second Tony has admitted to this type of occurrence: ( https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4231437,4231437#msg-4231437 )

Oh, the things we railfan/railroaders did to get shots during our careers, when it was still legal…

1. MP business car 2 at the rear end of northbound train SAK (San Antonio ~ Kansas City) near Osawatomie, KS.
(Photo by Tony Fey on April 29, 1977.)
*These dates are just guesstimations. The exact dates are unknown.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Tony Fey (mopacrr)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/22 21:13 by santafe199.

---

Nice shiny coupler.

Very nice looking. MoP passenger equipment is a favorite to me.
Brian Stevens

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It was originally a C&EI sleeper named "Loblolly Pine".
> The car was acquired by Autoliner Corp in the late 1960s*.
> In turn the Mop purchased it from Autoliner Corp in the mid-1970s*.

Here's some history on the business car:

The Loblolly Pine was 1 of 29 Pine-series 6 section-6 roomette-4 double bedroom (6S-6RM-4DB) sleepers built by Pullman-Standard in 1953 in Lot #6909 to Plan #4183. These cars were ordered in November 1951 and were outshopped/delivered between March and May 1953; the Loblolly Pine was outshopped at the beginning of April. 4 of the 29 cars were owned by the C&EI (as #900-#903; the Loblolly Pine as #902), 3 of the cars were owned by the NC&StL (as #200-#202), and 22 were owned by the L&N (as #3450-#3471). After the MP and L&N bought and then split the C&EI, the Loblolly Pine and the other 3 C&EI Pine-series sleepers went to the L&N; in 1968, the Loblolly Pine became C&EI staff sleeper #652, and in 1969 it became L&N #652. The Loblolly Pine was sold in 1974 to William W. "Bill" Kratville's Autoliner Corporation in Omaha, and it was rebuilt by Autoliner to a business car as #101, with 2 staterooms and 1 bedroom. It was resold in 1976 to MP as #2, became UP Little Rock in 1985, became UP #109 (3rd) in 1986, became UP #105 (5th) in 1987, became UPP #105 Houston in 1990, and it was resold in 1997 to Mike Margrave/Railcar Preservation, who moved it to the Arizona RY Museum in Chandler, AZ. It is now named Promontory Point, is painted in the prewar version of UP's paint scheme (Armour Yellow, Signal Red, and Leaf Brown [instead of Harbor Mist Gray]), and is used in charter service, with a Amtrak #800xxx-series number, specifically #800724.

Sources:

1. Don Strack's Utah Rails website: http://utahrails.net/pass/heritage-fleet-1.php#upp105houston

2. "Streamliner Cars Volume One: Pullman Standard" by W. David Randall (RPC Publications, 1981)

3. Tom Madden's Pullman Project CCR database: http://pullmanproject.com/Database.htm

Rainier_Rails Wrote: > ...  Here's some history on the business car ...

That's quite a history. Thanks for filling in all of the gaps neither one of us completely knew about. (Especially me... ;^) Is the same car that accompanied UP 844(4) down to New Orleans & back in 1984-85?

Lance/199

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rainier_Rails Wrote: > ...  Here's some history
> on the business car ...
>
> That's quite a history. Thanks for filling in all
> of the gaps neither one of us completely knew
> about. (Especially me... ;^) Is the same car that
> accompanied UP 844(4) down to New Orleans & back
> in 1984-85?
>
> Lance/199

I don't believe it's the same car. As I recall we used the MoPac 8, normally assigned at that time to MoPac official Bill Farrel.

JBOmaha

Looks like much interior modification because
of window locations.

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

Copy19 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> santafe199 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Rainier_Rails Wrote: > ...  Here's some
> history
> > on the business car ...
> >
> > That's quite a history. Thanks for filling in
> all
> > of the gaps neither one of us completely knew
> > about. (Especially me... ;^) Is the same car
> that
> > accompanied UP 844(4) down to New Orleans &
> back
> > in 1984-85?
> >
> > Lance/199
>
> I don't believe it's the same car. As I recall we
> used the MoPac 8, normally assigned at that time
> to MoPac official Bill Farrel.
>
> JBOmaha You are correct, the #8 was the car used on the Worlds Fair Spc. This was a shake down trip as the Mop had made some modifications to the car after purchase from Auto Liner.The car had been in the Sedalia Shops, and made trip to St. Louis , then to Little Rock and then to KC. The Original Buzz Saw only last a few months when it was replaced with Eagle on the Buzz Saw logo, or as many at the time refer ed to it" The ruptured duck" logo. Tony Fey

Rainier_Rails Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Sources:
>
> 1. Don Strack's Utah Rails website:
> http://utahrails.net/pass/heritage-fleet-1.php#upp
> 105houston
>

About once a month, I do a search for "UtahRails" here on Trainorders to see if I need to make some changes to make the site easier to use, and more accurate. This reference made me realize that I had confused UP "Houston" (1st) and UPP 105 "Houston" (2nd). Two different cars.

UP "Houston" (1st) was the former MP 8, retired by UP in 1990. It never received a formal UP number, just its name. UPP 105 "Houston" (2nd) was the former MP 2, retired by UP in 1997.

http://utahrails.net/pass/heritage-fleet-1.php#upp105houston

I also found that UPP 105 "Houston" was missing from the UPP Number Index page. I have fixed that oversight.

http://utahrails.net/pass/heritage-fleet-upp-numbers.php

Thank you Ted, for keeping me honest.

Don Strack

Just a small nitpick.   It was a 6-4-6.    which had the 4 bedrooms in the middle.    a 6-6-4 had bedrooms on the end.   Most postwar types were of the 6-4-6 type

mundo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just a small nitpick.   It was a 6-4-6.   
> which had the 4 bedrooms in the middle.    a
> 6-6-4 had bedrooms on the end.   Most postwar
> types were of the 6-4-6 type

I have never known of the shorthand used for sleeping cars to refer to their location in the car. I'd always been led to believe that it was based on lower to higher priced accommodations, making 6-6-4 the logical designation.

Take the CZ bedroom-compartment cars. I've always considered them to be 6-5s. But using location in the car, they'd be 1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-2s, as the compartments and bedrooms were scattered through the car. And from what I've seen, most "10-6" Budd built cars, have the roomettes closest to the vestibule, whereas Pullman Standard build cars have the bedrooms first, but I've never heard of them called "6-10"s. And lastly, some of the C&O designed cars as well as the last Budd 10-6s built for the Denver Zephyr were really "5-6-5"s, with the bedrooms in the center of the car for a smoother ride, and the 10 roomettes staggered on each end of the car.

And so, Ed, I'm not sure just how often that "6-4-6" identification was used.

Lee Hower - Sacramento