Well both cars arrived this afternoon, and were added to No.64, the West Texas Express. The T&P baggage* was picked up at Sweetwater, and the heavyweight diner was switched into the train at Brownwood, along with a pair of sleepers full of Boy Scouts en route from San Angelo to Las Vegas, New Mexico and Philmont Scout Ranch. Normally, No.64 consists of head end cars and one or two chair cars, but Santa Fe does it right. The Scouts have a custom Fred Harvey menu for this dining car, featuring modestly-priced meals that are nourishing, tasty and simple, and including a complimentary slice of pie with dinner. The train did a little head-end work and now departs Caprock, Texas, with Wallace White in the Engineer seat, griping to the Fireman, Homer Smith, about having one geep for a 6-car train. He’ll get the job done. Wallace will let ‘er run when he gets the train up onto the flat territory.
* The joke is on me, RATTLER21, and you are correct . . . the T&P car is green. I will have to be more careful in the future. GGD did a nice job of accurately painting the two cars different greens. The Santa Fe Coach Green diner is excellent! Since my layout is set in 1953, I would think that T&P might still have had one green baggage car in that year. I'll check my T&P book and see if I can find one that really was still green then. But the car is in service and will stay in service. We just pick 'em up off the T&P interchange at Sweetwater, and we don't care what color the car is, as long as it is equipped for passenger service.
