Number 90 posted:I like to build secondary Santa Fe passenger trains like the Grand Canyon or the Fast Mail. I would appreciate some expertise on NYC head-end cars which ran in Santa Fe trains. During the postwar era, there were multiple daily cars of storage mail interchanged from New York Central to Santa Fe at Chicago. The only ones I can remember seeing in California were heavyweight baggage cars painted green or grey. I have also seen photos of what appears to be converted WW2 troop sleepers from NYC in Santa Fe mail trains.
Did NYC ever paint heavyweight baggage cars in the 2-tone grey? If so, were there many, or perhaps just a few for particular trains? When did NYC start painting heavyweight cars solid grey and when were the last green ones repainted grey?
Thanks in advance for any help on this.
In the late 1950's - early 60's I used to watch the PRR Northern Express/Penn Texas/ and something else leave Baltimore around 9 PM. On Fridays the train generally carried 19 +/- cars which had come from DC and were running up the old Northern Central to Harrisburg where the train was split for Buffalo, St.Louis/Texas, and Chicago.
The train generally was about a 50/50 split between head end and passenger cars. More times than not it would have an NYC 60 foot baggage like the one in the photo. Seemed to be split between green and two tone gray cars. On occasion you would see an NYC converted troop baggage car and they too were painted two tone gray or green.
One of the things I never took note of was what trucks were on the NYC troop baggage cars. I believe the Allied full cushions were prohibited from interchange service by that time. I do recall that the New Haven converted troop baggage cars running through Baltimore had commonwealth trucks which replaced the Allieds.
