Nostalgia & History > SFe MOW Bagg for ‘gcm’ + a story!

Earlier today TO member ‘gcm’ posted a Santa Fe ex-heavyweight baggage car converted to M.O.W. service. In a reply I mentioned that I had shot the same car 3 years later in Mulvane, KS. I’ve scanned, and now posted that shot here. It looks the same, except for a new coat of paint.

But I was wrong about killing time on a work train. My timebook tells me a much more complicated story: I went on duty @ Emporia @ 4:50 AM for train 326 W-1 w/ engs 6392 & 6369 + 58 cars. For some now forgotten reason the Chief DS had us park the train at Mulvane and deadhead on down to Wellington. It was 3’ 25” from the time we “arrived” in Mulvane and we departed in our transportation. There’s NO way it takes 3-some odd hours to park a train & tie it down, so I’m pretty sure I had ample opportunity to wander around the small yard at Mulvane shooting a few slides. After 9’ 40” off in Wellington we went back on duty @ 9:10 PM to deadhead right back up to Mulvane and forward our own train on into Wellington. It was a weird round trip, but we made 3 days pay instead of the usual 2… :^)

1. AT&SF 191375 sits in Mulvane, KS on May 23, 1980.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Nice shot and the car looks great after painting !
Gary

Can you read what the lettering under the road number says?

Originally built by Pullman in 1923 as a Baggage-Buffet-Library car-#1849 San Vincente.
Converted to a tool car in 1966. Length 83' 11" over buffers!
Info. from that cool Shine & Ellington book!

mp51w Wrote:

> Originally built by Pullman in 1923 as a
> Baggage-Buffet-Library car-#1849 San Vincente.

As San Vincente, its road number was 1348. When it was converted into a full baggage car in 1942, it was renumbered 1849.

The SFRH&MS revised edition of Shine & Ellington's book has a photo and side elevation drawing of the 1849, and the photo caption provides a hint as to what it probably says under 191375's road number - the car was the "Power and Storage Car for Bridge Gang No.2." This photo of the car shows what is presumably a power cable running out the top of the end door to feed the house-on-flat to the left:

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=atsf191375&o=atsf

Just to put the bookends on it, below is my only shot of 191375. It's behind the fence at the Erman Corp. scrapyard in Turner, KS just west of Argentine (Kansas City) in July of 1990, presumably soon to occupy one of those gons in the background.

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Thanks for the "final bookend", sad though it is. I put my original slide under glass but couldn't get any definitive take on the lettering below the car #. The first block of words looks like 'POWER E STORAGE Car', part of which might make sense if there was some kind of internal need for power such as a gas cook stove. When I enlarged Gary's shot that first word also looks like 'POWER'. But in both images the second block of words is unintelligible...

Lance