Re: [CBQ] Aurora Station in the push-pull era

["Charlie Vlk" <cvlk@comcast.net>]

Bill, Don and All-

 

The “Suburbanaire” moniker appeared on some of the test paint job rebuilt cars and perhaps timetables and promotional literature but AFAIK really did not catch on as a name for the Q Suburban Service.

 

The #7022 is one of the stretched and steel plated wood cars that precipitated the building of the open-platform steel cars that ended up being modernized.  Note that they ride on No.2 wood beam trucks. The story (heard at a BRHS meet years ago) was that the railroad had a program stretching old wood cars and putting them on new steel underframes.   An exec asked for details of how much per car the program was costing.  When the data was presented the program was halted as it was very expensive. I am not sure if the cars were being steel sheathed as part of that program or if that was done to make them blend in more with the new steel cars….I am guessing the latter as there are pictures of the stretched cars with wood sides.  A number of the underframes had already been built for the program so the ever-thrifty Q designed a steel car to fit on the underframes resulting in the 7100 series cars.  The new steel cars ran on cast steel trucks with a short wheelbase.  The #7145 in the attached picture shows what the new steel cars looked like before rebuilding for A/C with enclosed vestibules. 

 

At the time the C&NW and CRI&P were building steel cars for their suburban service, the IC had electrified with steel cars, and the PRR and even the C&IW used steel cars so there was quite a bit of peer pressure in the Chicago Suburban Service market.  Only the CMStP&P did not upgrade their suburban fleet until they got the MILW/RI Budd bilevels.

 

The Bachmann car is their second rendition of a PRR heavyweight Coach with 20 paired windows and a 2 single toilet windows on each side.  The suburban cars had 25 single windows, mainline Chair Cars 16 single windows plus 2 toilet windows and Coaches 21 single windows plus 2 toilet windows.  

Being a paired window car it is not like any of the cars used on the Q.

The Heavyweight Coach and Chair cars that were pressed into suburban service to cover cars being modernized, much like the use of ex-C&NW coaches were used when the gallery cars were being refurbished and equipped for HEP.

 

The production model situation is about the same in HO and N. The Bachmann cars can be stand-ins for the Q heavyweights but they were only used for a relatively short time and, while they probably would look good in the “Suburbanaire” colors are only stand-ins.   Atlas painted up some of their C&NW shorties in N (and O?) in that scheme but being 60’ cars they are too short…and don’t have window sizes to splice into decent cars.

 

To date the gallery car situation is also bad for production cars.   The old Holgate & Reynolds / Two Brothers aluminum extrusions are pretty crude in HO.  In N the Con-Cor cars were more Milwaukee Road-ish than Q and the Shapeways prints are RTA era not CB&Q.  Some very nice brass cars have been made in HO and of course the NKP sides can build into the 7200 series cars.  

 

You are right about the trap.  You will  be running the 5:20 while I fuss about the lack of an accurate car!!!

 

Charlie Vlk

 

 

 

 

From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> On Behalf Of Don Winn
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 5:13 PM
To: CBQ@groups.io
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Aurora Station in the push-pull era

 

Thank you one and all who responded to my inquiry.  A tremendous amount of new information and great suggestions.   I love this forum.

 

I was able to find the 2 Passenger Train Journals with Ed's articles on ebay and just received them.  Great info and photos.   I did some more digging on rrpicturearchives and found more photos of both styles of 7200 and 7300 power cars.   Several of them are still preserved in Union and St. Louis and other places.  

 

Sometimes as modelers we fall into a trap of modeling the perfect consist rather than the real nitty-gritty.  Like "ruining" your perfect BLI California Zephyr consist with a foreign sleeper (which I have bought into).  The nitty-gritty tells a more interesting story.  I found an unlettered Bachmann coach that looks like a dead ringer for the 6100 series cars.  Bryan may disagree, but it looks close enough for me.  I'll put the NKP power car sides on my future car project list.

 

Again, thank you for all the great advice.  

 

Don Winn

 

 

 

 

On Thu, Feb 17, 2022 at 11:06 AM William Barber <clipperw@gmail.com> wrote:

Don,

 

When the first double deck gallery cars were placed in service in 1950, the Q also rebuilt a number of older open platform 4 wheel truck suburban cars. The original cars were built in the 1920s. The rebuilt cars had closed vestibules, new seating and air conditioning among other upgraded improvements. Five of the cars, 7200 - 7204 were equipped with head end power generators at one end. The Q also rebuilt some 6100 series coaches into power cars in the 7300 series. Some of these had baggage sections while others were all coach. These were often the designated “smoking cars”. The rebuilt suburban cars were called “Suburbanaire” cars and had a distinctive mid green and tan paint scheme. The 7300 series power cars were painted silver while the 7200 series 4 wheel truck power cars were painted to match the other single level cars. I don’t recall the total number, but there were at least 60 suburbanaire cars built. In 1966, many of the rush hour trains were single level trains made up of the suburbanaire cars. Attached are several photos of the cars including one of the cars as originally built. There are more photos available in the heavyweight passenger car album in the Flickr gallery in the members only section of the BRHS website. 

 

Bill Barber

Gravois Mills, MO

 

 

 

 

 

Cars stored in the evening at the lower coach yard in Aurora.

 

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CB&Q #7145.jpeg
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