3 ORHS Passenger Cars Find Home in Florida

Three passenger cars once used by the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society in excursion service have been sold to a Florida museum.

The three cars were among six that were involved in a July 2, 2014, derailment in Bellevue.

The cars were trucked from Bellevue last week and unloaded Saturday morning at the Florida Railroad Museum in Parrish. The museum plans to restore the cars and use them on its weekend tourist trains.

The museum noted that two of the three cars had tied to the New York-Florida rail travel market.

These included No. 104 (City of Orrville) and No. 106 (Ohio Presidents). Also sold was No. 103 (Rober S. Bixler).

No. 104 was built by Budd in 1940 for the Atlantic Coast Line and assigned to the Champion. No. 106 was built by Budd for the Seaboard Air Line and assigned to the Silver Meteor. The ORHS acquired both cars in 1986.

No. 103 was built by Budd in 1946 for the Santa Fe and also acquired in 1986. It was named after Bixler, a founding member of the ORHS, in 1989.

The 103 was lettered for the Wheeling & Lake Erie while the 104 was lettered for the ACL and the 106 lettered for the SCL. At least one of the six cars involved in the Bellevue derailment has returned to Orrville.

No. 101 (William B. Baer) returned last November. It was built in 1947 for the Pennsylvania Railroad and assigned to the Silver Meteor pool.

ORHS acquired it in 1984. It once operated in Amtrak service.

Another car involved in the derailment, the Paul Revere parlor car, was restored and operated this year on excursion trains on Norfolk Southern behind Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive No. 765.

No. 3125 accompanied the 765 to the Cuyahoga Valley Railroad last month, but did not operate in excursion service on the CVSR. It was seen in the ferry move consist on Monday when the 765 returned to its base in New Haven, Indiana.

The July 2, 2014 derailment occurred at about 8 a.m. as the six cars were being moved in a Wheeling & Lake Erie freight train.

They were returning from Owosso, Michigan, where they had been used for excursion trains during a festival.

In the wake of the derailment, the W&LE banned passenger excursions over its tracks.

This article was edited to correct the date of construction of the former Atlantic Coast Line passenger car.

Society Seeks Funds to Repaint PRR Passenger Car

The Braddock Inn rides on the back of Amtrak’s westbound Cardinal at Charlottesville, Va., in June 2012. It is still wearing its MARC livery. (Photograph by Craig Sanders)

An artist rendering of what Braddock Inn will look like after being repainted into its original Pennsylvania Railroad livery.

The West Virginia-based Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society is seeking to raise money to pay for repainting a passenger car that it owns into the livery of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The society, based in Huntington, W.Va., owns the Braddock Inn, which was once PRR No. 8246. The group wants to repaint the car into its original colors of Tuscan red, gold and black.

Although it has raised $12,000 in donations, it needs another $20,000. The fundraiser is currently online at http://www.gofundme.com/BraddockInn

“We are hoping to generate $30,000 to repaint the car into its original Pennsylvania colors,” said Joe Rosenthal, the society’s assistant general manager. “We are thankful for the donations we have received so far, and hope to generate the remaining $20,000 to repaint this car for use on public and private passenger excursions.”

Built in 1949 as a roomette-sleeper, it was assigned to the Indianapolis Limited through the 1950s.

The Pennsy subsequently rebuilt the car into a 64-seat coach that it named Peter Schhoenberger. In 1963, the car was painted into a silver stainless steel livery and renumbered 1509.

The car would later run in commuter service for Penn Central, New Jersey Transit and Maryland Area Regional Commuter service. MARC restored the car in 1964 to first class service, operating it as a café-parlor car on commuter runs between Washington, D.C., and Martinsburg, W.Va.

The Huntington Society purchased the car in 2004 for use on its annual New River Train excursions and other trips on Amtrak trains.

Vintage Passenger Cars to be Auctioned

Looking to buy a bare bones passenger car? Then you might want to check out an auction to be held on Sept. 18 in Pottstown, Pa., of 13 passenger cars that were in the process of being rebuilt for the ill-fated Greenbrier Express.

The cars had been stripped of their internal furnishings in preparation for receiving new interiors, but that work was never finished.

The auction, which will be overseen by Blackmon Actions, Inc., will include the passenger cars as well as their trucks, wheels, generator sets and other car parts. The cars will be sold in “as is” condition.

The heritage of the cars includes Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific.

The Greenbrier Express was the brainchild of Jim Justice, the owner of the 200-year-old Greenbrier Hotel. The cars would have been used to take hotel guests in style over the route of Amtrak’s Cardinal west of Washington, D.C.

Work began on refurbishing the cars in February 2011 at a former Bethlehem Steel facility in Pottstown, but halted in November 2011.

The announced reason for stopping the rebuilding work was to conduct an analysis of passenger railcar crashworthiness regulations. But the project never restarted.

For more information on the auction go to

www.blackmonauctions.com/auctions/135.