Definition #2 from Webster-Merriam:

The pigeonholes are above the work desk in the image below.

Keep in mind that REA was the FedEx of the day; they not only carried packages, but were also a courier service for time sensitive items, and could also provide security for valuables, which is why the messenger cars had safes.


One of the cars I've been in (it may have been an RPO) had a dry hopper toilet against the bulkhead, but no enclosure. We're all men here, and all that.

Kurt, I beg to differ with you on that "build" date for the NYC 8770. 1959 was in all probability a rebuild date; that is, when the car was converted from horse car to straight baggage car. The upper windows were blanked off at that time. The original build date is 1920s. A builder's photo of a car from that Lot is in Robert Wayner's "New York Central Freight and Passenger Cars" softcover photo book.

Howard P.

J. David -

Recently saw a short video of New Haven 2-8-2 #3025 on a vintage freight train taken at Chester, VT which showed New York Central double door 40' (or 50'?) box car # 213173 sitting in a siding across from the depot. Couldn't find this car in the 2016 roster you mentioned and wondered what its history might be?

Thanks for any info.

Les

The NYC automobile car is a 40' car. A number of these cars were modified in the late 1950s-early 1960s by NYC, with 4 Vapor-Clarkson 4625 steam generators; they were used at "outlying points" to heat commuter cars on overnight or weekend layover. Poughkeepsie, Brewster, Weehawken and Harmon were among locations that had them. The cars were painted as freight cars, in standard NYC "Jade Green" with large "cigar band" heralds. These cars allowed the shutdown and retirement of steam plants at those locations.

The car at VRR was a leftover from Harmon, obtained from Metro-North during one of their periodic purges of "old junk" that they inherited from Conrail in 1983.

Howard P.

Thanks Howard. Glad to see the car was repainted into its New York Central "steam era" scheme and got its original road number back.

Les