ex-CNJ cab control cars

[ApproachMedium]

George Hart has since past and I forget who the ownership is now of his cars. They still sit in jim thrope in the yard. I will find out from my friend out there. I believe Andy Muller has taken possesion of a few of them....

[56-57]

The wheels for the 03 are under the 09. The wheels under the 09 were flattened in 2003 and are on the ground aside of the turntable lead in JT yard.

None of the cars except for the 1300 were OOS for wheels under RTI/George Hart operation.

The 1303 is still on blocks, and still for sale in Stewartstown, PA with three former RDG coaches, all belonging to the estate.

[Otto Vondrak]

Not to split hairs here, but I asked a friend up at Green Mountain about the 1317. Both 1317 and 1319 arrived at GMRC with the ends sealed, and both have been opened up and had train doors added for mid-train use. GMRC has plans to convert 1319 back into a cab car when time permits.

I think somewhere I have a photo of these cars when they first arrived with the sealed doors, I'll try to find them.

[sjwhitney]

I have a few of course which I'll try to attach.

[sjwhitney]

More views

[Otto Vondrak]

Thats the way I remember seeing them when I first visited North Walpole! Thanks for sharing the photos.

[Otto Vondrak]

Greetings folks...
My name is Scott J. Whitney and I am in charge of the passenger fleet at VT Rail System. Many of you realize that we have the largest share of ex-CNJ 1300 series cars. This includes TWO former cab cars. The car in the image behind the 1317 is the 1319. Controls were removed and bathrooms installed BUT the long range plan is to restore the controls again as we have more than just a small need to be able to reverse direction where there are no passing tracks. I do have a list in my work files of the dispositions of most of the cars today. There are at least two in NJ, four or five in PA, two in NH, two in KY (including one INTACT cab car; 1321, but not ever used in MU), and the rest here on VRS. Currently we have the following: 1301, (negotiating for 1304), 1305, 1306, 1312, 1313, 1314 (OOS), 1317 (cab operational), 1319 (cab not currently operational), 1323. On our two cabs, we cut the welded in panels out of the ends and restored walk through including an end door on the 1317 and replacement buffers on both cars. The boile tube pilot is most assuredly a DL&W item.

Thank you very much for the information!

[BGRMJames]

Hi.

The former CNJ 1302 is also at the Bluegrass Railroad in Versailles, KY. It was sidelined years ago, and hasn't had any care since then. In some respects it's in better shape than the 1310 and the 1314, but it'll be a few years and a quite a bit of money until it'll haul passengers again. It's been trapped there with several other cars for six to eight years.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1510800

It was purchased at the same time as the other two. Our records say that they were bought from the TA&W; but I wouldn't call that information Scripture.

The 1310 is in the best shape of the three. The 1314 has some of the cab control still there; a lot of switches which don't seem to do anything (some do), a horn valve, and an emergency brake valve.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1572777
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=829351

I don't seem to have any photos of the cab at the moment.

James

[sjwhitney]

James,
Thanks for the photo links to the Bluegrass cars. One note here for all is that the BGRM 1314 is actually the 1320. I'm not certain how the 1320 was changed to 1314 but the real 1314 is our one and only out-of-service parts car on the Vermont Rail System fleet. Hopefully you can send along some more images. It's too bad that the cab isn't fully utilized down there as I would surely be making use of it if it was in our fleet!

SJW

[BGRMJames]

Do you guys utilize the true cab control aspect of it? Our conductor rides back there, protecting our return shove.

While I don't know if they're original, we have the 1314 number boards. Is there a good place on the car to check the original number?

James

[sjwhitney]

Yes, we make full use of the cab car controls to operate our train out of White River Jct., VT. It regularly runs to points with no run-around access.

As for car numbers, the best places to find them are on the car side by looking carefully accross the paint and on the end doors of the car. Many cars have the numbers stamped into the wood of the end doors and there were also painted on numbers as well.

As for the number boards, they must be replacements because the cab cars were all renumbered to 515X series numbers upon creation of Conrail. Our two cars became 5150 and 5151. I'm suspecting that your cab car was the 5152 because ours were 1317, 1319 and yours was 1320 originally (1318 was not a cab car).

[keyboardkat]

not all had front end sealed.
http://imagestorage.nerail.org/photos/2 ... 112128.jpg

If not all had the front end sealed, where did the put the steam radiator for heating the cab? And those that have been opened up, have they moved the radiator or have they eliminated it? I think most of those tourist roads are summer-only operations, so heating is irrelevant. And the locomotives around today have no steam generators anyway.

[keyboardkat]

I remember seeing a train in Newark Penn in 1972, with a GP-40P on the west end, a string of blue, air conditioned, heavily riveted cars with axle-driven generators and batteries, and one of these push-pull cab cars on the east end.

A 74-volt line from the locomotive's train lighting generator passed through the train, just for lighting the cab car at the other end.

I don't know if the air conditioned cars on this train were from the Blue Comet, or if they were old cars off the B&O.

[ApproachMedium]

I remember seeing a train in Newark Penn in 1972, with a GP-40P on the west end, a string of blue, air conditioned, heavily riveted cars with axle-driven generators and batteries, and one of these push-pull cab cars on the east end.

A 74-volt line from the locomotive's train lighting generator passed through the train, just for lighting the cab car at the other end.

I don't know if the air conditioned cars on this train were from the Blue Comet, or if they were old cars off the B&O.

The 74 volt generator on the engines was used for lighting all the cars. Cab car MU controls such as the throttle, lights and headlights runs off the power passed thru the MU trainline from the locomotive. This is still true on todays cab cars. If the cars battery fails and the car is off of HEP it can still control a train.

[sjwhitney]

The ORIGINAL train lighting was via 74V power supplied by the GP-7's and RS-3's with train lighting generators. However, in later years this was changed to 120V lighting as supplied by the more modern passenger units. The original lighting power passed through the sockets above each doorway as was traditional. However, the 120V power required that a second trainline be added below the cars. The overhead line was retained for supplying 74V power to the cabs for locomotive control, radio and equipment lights. The headlights were wired to the 120V power. This method of control we still use today except that with short trains and more modern radio I can get ample power through the MU line instead of needing to have a locomotive equipped with a 74V power socket.