To show the “heritage” of Southern official car No. 21 (OC-21), I have been working on a model of Pullman “Point Richmond”, the car Southern converted in 1956. I asked, here and the “PCL”, if there was a requirement for the railroads that had “their” cars off the Pullman lease to remove “Pullman” on the letter board. Like many questions, the answer was “it depends”, there does not appear to have been a requirement, or even a typical decision by different railroads.

The attached note, from 8-21-69, discusses the Southern’s decision. The conclusion, for Southern’s “sleepers” (correspondence typically does not use “Pullman”). The memo essentially says, “letter the heavyweights like the lightweight cars”.

The conclusion continues, probably, only heavyweight sleepers that were used after they came off the Pullman lease had their letter boards changed. Note that there were many more Pullmans that were never used in SR passenger schedules after they were returned, or purchased from the Pullman Co. Most of those cars were converted to MoW service. That group included a number of Pullman tourist cars that were not owned, or never assigned to the Southern.

Does anyone have photos of Southern heavyweight Pullmans in service?


Ike

PS There will be an combined/rescheduled Nov and Dec archives work session this coming Friday and Saturday. The January work session will return to our standard 3rd Fri and Sat of the month days, Jan 20 and 21.



21