Railroad Forums 

  • Phoebe Snow-Erie Limited Info

  • Discussion relating to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie, and the resulting 1960 merger creating the Erie Lackawanna. Visit the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society at http://www.erielackhs.org/.
Discussion relating to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie, and the resulting 1960 merger creating the Erie Lackawanna. Visit the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society at http://www.erielackhs.org/.

Moderator: blockline4180

 #679052  by ErieLimited2914
 
What was the average consist for the Phoebe Snow and Erie Limited? I'm planning on creating the entire set of both trains in 1.5" scale eventually.

And anyone have drawings of the Phoebe Snow observation?
 #679225  by johnpbarlow
 
In its final days in the EL era (ie, ~ 1965), east of Meadville, the Phoebe's consist was 2 E-8s, a baggage car, two coaches, a diner, a sleeper, and the tavern lounge obs. IIRC, since there were (and still are!) only 2 tavern lounge obs, these cars were operated only in the daylight portion of the Phoebe's Chicago-Hoboken run east of Meadville, PA. Prior to the Phoebe losing its mail contract, 3-4 mail cars would also be on the head end.
 #679295  by ErieLimited2914
 
johnpbarlow wrote:In its final days in the EL era (ie, ~ 1965), east of Meadville, the Phoebe's consist was 2 E-8s, a baggage car, two coaches, a diner, a sleeper, and the tavern lounge obs. IIRC, since there were (and still are!) only 2 tavern lounge obs, these cars were operated only in the daylight portion of the Phoebe's Chicago-Hoboken run east of Meadville, PA. Prior to the Phoebe losing its mail contract, 3-4 mail cars would also be on the head end.
E8
E8
RPO
RPO
RPO
Baggage
Coach
Coach
Diner
Pullman
Tavern Lounge

Like this? And only one sleeper? Wow, that's kind of surprising.
 #679432  by ErieLimited2914
 
Cool film!

Would the first three baggage cars on that train, were those RPO/Mail, REA, or Passenger baggage?
 #679486  by johnpbarlow
 
ErieLimited2914 wrote:Cool film!

Would the first three baggage cars on that train, were those RPO/Mail, REA, or Passenger baggage?
The Phoebe Snow carried only a single RPO when the train had a contract to haul US mail. It's a bit hard to distinguish in the excellent video of the DL&W version of the Phoebe but the RPO looks to be the 3rd car from the front that has 3 doors and a handful of windows. One of the doors would have had the hook to pick up mail on the fly from a wayside hanger at smaller stations where the Phoebe didn't stop (My Dad also said RPOs have a mailslot that permitted a non-passenger to walk up to a train in the station and mail a letter that would get sorted en route). The mail cars have two doors and are ahead of the RPO I'm guessing were used for holding sorted mail. In the EL days of Phoebe operation, mail cars were switched in/out en route at major stations like Binghamton. Express freight would have been carried in a Railway Express Agency car and bulk mail would have been in boxcar - both of these cars would on occasion be part of the Phoebe consist in the EL era. On many trains, mail cars were often from foreign RRs that interchanged at the destination.

Re: the Erie Limited consist, I suspect it might have been a little more mail-heavy than the DL&W Phoebe Snow consist but the passenger car consist would have been similar except for the lack of observation cars. Lastly, IIRC the work-horse mail trains (ie those with up to 10 or more mail cars) on the Erie and DL&W were the Erie's Atlantic Express (eb) and Pacific Express (wb) and the DL&W's Owl (wb) and New York Mail (eb).
Last edited by johnpbarlow on Sat Jun 06, 2009 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
 #679494  by ErieLimited2914
 
Did the Erie Limited have the conventional observation with the open platform? I've seen a photo of a Pullman green one with an Erie Limited drumhead and also so (what looked like) a Pullman sleeper with is on the back door.
 #680675  by ExCon90
 
ErieLimited2914 wrote:Did they have observations during the steam era? Or was that only an executive car?
I used to see the westbound Erie Limited (behind a K5) at Ridgewood from the early 40s to 1947, when we moved away. I never saw an observation car; in fact, there would sometimes be a long-distance Stillwell on the end, with diaphragms and doors and traps, which I presume came off (the car, not the doors) at Susquehanna or someplace. I don't remember the time of year, but it may have been during the summer when there would have been passengers (especially during the years of gas rationing) for Delaware River resort points west of Port Jervis. There was usually plenty of head-end traffic.
 #680748  by ErieLimited2914
 
Wow! That's pretty cool that you remember that. I'm kind of surprised at that too that there wasn't an observation. I guess that photo I saw must have been from a business special.
 #680833  by erie2521
 
I believe that the observation cars for the Erie Limited came off during the depression. When I saw it in 1938, the last car had a sign on the back that said it was the Erie Limited.
 #681350  by H.F.Malone
 
No, the Erie Limted of 1929 carried a Pullman solarium-lounge-sleeper obs car; that's the type with the deep end windows and no open platform. One of the cars was named "Ridgewood Country Club", as I recall. The car that runs as occasional part of the M&E fleet, "Kitchi Gammi Club", is similar to what was used on the Erie Ltd.