How many Phoebe Snow cars are left?

How many cars from the original phoebe snow are still in existance?

Steve F45 wrote:How many cars from the original phoebe snow are still in existance?

Both dining cars and both Tavern-Lounge cars. By my count about 4 of the coaches. Sadly none of the sleeping cars survived (that's why we have a Nickel Plate Road sleeping car - while they didn't run on the Phoebe Snow, they did run on other DL&W/EL trains). No DL&W E untis survive. Not sure which, if any head end cars remain that ran on the Phoebe Snow.

Isn't there an Erie Sleeping Car in a Museum in Ohio somewhere?

Ryan

PRRGuy wrote:Isn't there an Erie Sleeping Car in a Museum in Ohio somewhere?

Ryan

There's a 1954 Erie 10-5 on a business train. I think it's CSX now. There's a Erie 6-6-4 in Bellevue, Ohio at the NKP and Mad River RR museum. There are two Erie Sleepers in Canada on a toursit railroad. But I think they were turned into Day Nighter coaches for CN. I rode one on the Atlantic Limited to Maine years ago from Montreal. There's also a 6-6-4 at a South Carolina Railroad Museum with a Erie diner. I think it's in Greenville, SC. There's baggage cars here and there. DLW and Erie. 6 coaches (not all coaches anymore) some are open air cars, table cars. One or two are coaches. The lounge Obs are on Metro North. I don't know of any DLW sleepers.

From memory here: Trains 3 and 6 handled a through sleeper to and off the NKP. These cars were DL&W ones.

The one on Train 7 (The Westerner) was a stainless steel NKP through sleeper.

Is this correct? Too, on what eastbound DL&W train did that NKP sleeper come to Hoboken? I never remember it sitting in Hoboken during the day, but I imagine it was way over by track 13. Is this correct?

I'm getting in way late on this discussion, sorry.

The Phoebe Snow, in its original form, was conceived, designed, and built to be a daylight train, meaning that there were no sleepers built for this train. The schedule between Hoboken and Buffalo was never meant to accommodate a sleeper.

Also, since this train was aimed at the business traveler, and not the leisure traveler (the same has always been true of airlines, the business traveler is where the money is), there were no baggage cars built for it, either. One can only guess the idea was that the traveler the DL&W was targeting did not carry a lot of luggage, maybe an over-nighter they could toss in the overhead rack and that would be it. That, of course, was the purest of theories with this train.

As with most good intentions, the reality, from what I understand, quickly became a different story. For one thing, the railroad realized they were losing head-end business by not assigning any to the PS. Since no head-end cars of any type were built for this streamliner, whatever they had on the roster, including boxcars, ended up being spliced into east and westbound trains. Aesthetics apparently were circling the drain early with the Phoebe Snow.

Considering that DL&W was such a small, yet wonderful, railroad, it's remarkable that so much of the Phoebe Snow still exists.

I take it you guys are aware of this organization http://eldcps.org/ They're doing some wonderful things.

On a related note, whatever became of the former Phoebe Show E8s that pulled Conrail's inspection train for years?

I was looking for information on the car line designations for display on ELDCPS' "City of Lima", and ELDCPS Board member Pete Shepherd sent along these notes:

"Eastbound:
NKP 6 (City of Cleveland) to DL&W 10 (New York Mail) Car 60
(This is the famous car that took two nights Chicago to New York)

NKP 8 (New Yorker) to DL&W 8 (New Yorker) Car 80

Westbound:
DL&W 7 (Westerner) to NKP 7 (Westerner) Car 70
DL&W 3 (Phoebe Snow) to NKP 5 (City of Chicago) Car 30

Each road dedicated three cars to the pool that covered these assignments.
I strongly suspect that the car 70 and 80 assignments were always covered by NKP equipment, as I have never seen a photo of the "Phoebe Snow" that showed an NKP car in the consist. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of photos of NKP 6 with DL&W Pullmans. This would lead me to believe that the three NKP cars covered trains 7 and 8, and this situation continued until the trains were cut off in 1963 (In fact, the "Diamond" indicated that three NKP cars were the sole cars covering through service on 7 and 8 even after the other through service on 3 and 10 was cut off, and after the NKP operation was cut
back to Cleveland in 1962). Thus, the three DL&W cars would cover DL&W trains 3 and 10, with their NKP connections.

The car line numbers remained constant throughout the trip.

This info comes from the May 1956 Official Guide."

So, this spring you'll see City of LIma displaying either Routes 70 or 80 on her number boards.

John Isaksen
Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society
http://www.eldcps.org

vinsween wrote:
On a related note, whatever became of the former Phoebe Show E8s that pulled Conrail's inspection train for years?

Former Conrail 4022 is restored to Erie 833 and is the only surviving EL E8. It is owned by the NY&GL and is on display in Port Jervis, NY.

vinsween wrote:I'm getting in way late on this discussion, sorry.

The Phoebe Snow, in its original form, was conceived, designed, and built to be a daylight train, meaning that there were no sleepers built for this train. The schedule between Hoboken and Buffalo was never meant to accommodate a sleeper.

Also, since this train was aimed at the business traveler, and not the leisure traveler (the same has always been true of airlines, the business traveler is where the money is), there were no baggage cars built for it, either. One can only guess the idea was that the traveler the DL&W was targeting did not carry a lot of luggage, maybe an over-nighter they could toss in the overhead rack and that would be it. That, of course, was the purest of theories with this train.

As with most good intentions, the reality, from what I understand, quickly became a different story. For one thing, the railroad realized they were losing head-end business by not assigning any to the PS. Since no head-end cars of any type were built for this streamliner, whatever they had on the roster, including boxcars, ended up being spliced into east and westbound trains. Aesthetics apparently were circling the drain early with the Phoebe Snow.

Considering that DL&W was such a small, yet wonderful, railroad, it's remarkable that so much of the Phoebe Snow still exists.

I take it you guys are aware of this organization http://eldcps.org/ They're doing some wonderful things.

On a related note, whatever became of the former Phoebe Show E8s that pulled Conrail's inspection train for years?

If you check timetable's from 1950 on you'll see a Chicago to New York (Hoboken) sleeper. And as with any long distance train 20% of your business is end point to end point and an other 20% can be from connecting train business (don't tell Amtrak) Many connections today are broken. Example try to go Chicago to Montreal or Vermont. Depending on the distance it's my opinion the business travelers were found mostly on the fast overnighters. So they could be there for the morning meeting. Even today when Amtrak would arrange for a long distance train to arrive before the first morning flight it would do well. Most long distance trains today arrive in the late morning or even the afternoon like the Lake Shore Limited into a major market like New York City to miss the rush hour and avoid having this business travel market. Phoebe Snow could not compete with the NYC and PRR on the east end they went right into New York City a one seat ride. The trains market was Northern New Jersey, and Newark they could offer a one seat ride from there.

The DL&W long distance market being primarily North Jersey and not so much New York City....

This comment triggered memories of my trips. I often took advantage of a Monday through Thursday DL&W special long distance fare of $4.75 round trip Hoboken-Scranton and return. In my later teenage years I would take a date for the day. About every two or three months I would take the day and enjoy the observation car's last seat westbound, and only sometimes lucky to get it on the return. Still, riding anywhere in those cars was a treat. In fact, westbound I or I and my friends would often be the only passengers in the car for the first couple of stops. We would turn the seats so we could face out the end windows. Bar volume in the cars was light westbound in the morning. At most only about a half dozen or so people would wonder back into the car, order a drink, then return to their regular seats. After the Gap, the car would get more people in it.

On the No. 6 return, the observation car was usually half full departing Scranton, and it would have a pretty good sized crowd eastward from there. Eastward toward Cresco, the train turned and there was a great view of the Delaware Water Gap. Everyone would turn and comment on the view out the right side of the car. But, what always surprised me is how empty the car was east from Newark. I/we were often the last people in the car. Of course, the steward stopped serving right once the train departed Newark, because he had to tally up the sales and count the money for turn in. Still, it was a delightful car and train to ride.