Nostalgia & History > Sleeper Saturday: Fir Summit, Fir View & Fir Woods

Continuing this series of slides taken in the early 60's by Dick Kuelbs, this time of three Plan #4179 6 section-4 roomette-4 double bedroom (6S-4RM-4DB) cars.

In order to meet demand for more of the various rooms/spaces that had become popular with the introduction of lightweight equipment, during the initial postwar years, Pullman dipped into their supply of stored/surplus heavyweight sleepers to produce rebuilt cars with the traveler of that time in mind, offering bedrooms, roomettes, and the like, with several different series to new Plans, all with various "tree" names. One of these series was the Plan #4179 Fir-series.

1) Fir Summit, in Dallas, in December 1962.  Built in Lot #4932 in December 1925 as the Plan #3584A 10S-2DR Point Breeze for the general service pool, later assigned to SOU and NYC, retained by Pullman at the 12/31/1948 divestiture, rebuilt to the Fir Summit in August 1950, repainted to Two-Tone Gray (TTG) as seen here in November 1953, retired in May 1964 and sold for scrap.

2) Fir View, in Dallas, on Saturday, March 10th, 1962.  Built in Lot #4932 in December 1925 as the Plan #3584A 10S-2DR Point Franklin for the general service pool, later assigned to SAL, NYC, and ACL, retained by Pullman at the 12/31/1948 divestiture, rebuilt to the Fir View in October 1950, repainted to SAL colors in December 1952, repainted to TTG as seen here in October 1953, retired in May 1964 and sold for scrap.

3) Fir Woods, in Dallas, on Saturday, December 26th, 1964.  Built in Lot #4932 in January 1926 as the Plan #3584A 10S-2DR Point Marion for the general service pool, later assigned to SOU, ACL, and SAL, retained by Pullman at the 12/31/1948 divestiture, rebuilt to the Fir Woods in September 1950, repainted to TTG in November 1953, repainted to MP colors as seen here in August 1959, retired in February 1966 and sold for scrap.

Here's a link to the previous post in this series, of Mentone, Milano, and Miltonvale: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,6105236

Here's a link to the following post in this series, of Lake Majella, Lake Clark, and Lake Griffin: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,6110172

Sources:

1. "The Complete Roster of Heavyweight Pullman Cars" by Robert J. Wayner (Wayner Publications, 1985)

2. "Passenger Car Catalog: Pullman Operated Equipment, 1912-1949" by William W. Kratville (Kratville Publications, 1968)

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

4. Tom Madden's Pullman Project AC assignments (1937-1943) database.

5. "Railway Prototype Cyclopedia Vol. 33: Pullman Heavyweight Sleepers, Part IV: The Color Photographs by Dick Kuelbs"
(RP CYC Publishing Co., 2016)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/25 09:56 by Rainier_Rails.

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Most all of those tree-named sleepers were
various postwar rebuilds, weren't they?

timz Wrote:
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> Most all of those tree-named sleepers were various postwar rebuilds, weren't they?

Yes, as I said in the header, the tree-series cars (Fir, Oak, Elm, Beech, etc.) were all rebuilt in the initial postwar years.  The only exception was the Plan #4060/#4084 6S-6DB Poplar-series, which were late 1930's (1937 and 1939) rebuilds.

Thank you for both of the posts. Always interesting to see these older heavyweight cars in their twilight years.

MC

Great pics. I always found the late rebuilds very fascinating.

Posted from Android

Few small corrections (omissions) on my part:

Before the later rebuilds, in the late 1930's-early 1940's, these cars found themselves assigned to:

Point Breeze - SOU and NYC

Point Franklin - SAL, NYC, and ACL

Point Marion - SOU, ACL, and SAL

Original post also edited.