Does anyone know what institutions have Barney and Smith builders photos? I’m looking for photos of Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad buffet car #35.

I am aware of only one significant book published about the company. It is The Barney & Smith Car Company by Scott D. Trostell and published in 1993.

He tells of the difficulty of compiling the history because of the lack of surviving information. The manufacturing plant and offices were flooded out many times. One particular historic collection was unable to provide access because of staffing cut backs. An order list was compiled from secondary sources (like purchasing railroad records).

Further, the company has no corporate successors; it was liquidated at a sheriff's sale in 1924. Trostell also tells of interviewing a man who, as a teenager, was briefly employed to empty plan and filing cabinets, dumping the contents in a ravine along the edge of the property, so the cabinets could be sold.

The only way to research Barney&Smith cars is to determine which railroad the car went to, and hope that something has survived in that railroad's files and made in into preservation.

There are quite a few Northern Pacific Ry, Barney and Smith builders photos on the NPRHA.ORG website, look under passenger cars, Hawk collection.

=Hudson

I'm sure you are already familiar with the WNYRHS, if anyone would have information on Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad cars I would guess they would:

http://www.trainweb.org/wnyrhs/
http://www.trainweb.org/wnyrhs/historyFrame1Source1.htm

Thank you for your help. I’ll check with these other places to hopefully find what I need.

All,

In keeping with this topic. This comes to me by the way of a friend .
Mr. Starr


I wouldn't forget that BUFFALO and SUSQUEHANNA Passenger Car No. 35 was a Coach in the group 35-38 belt in 1906. There is a good photo of No. 38 in B. & S. time. I and my friend have never seen one of BUFFALO and SUSQUEHANNA No. 35 as a coach or combine . The conversion occurred circa 1920. Plenty of photo's as b. &o. No. 4089. A few post WAG- WELLSVILLE ADDISON and GALETON RR .

Barney and Smith Builder Photos seem to be somewhere.

Hope this helps.

As far as I know, and I would love to be proven wrong, any B&S builder's photo that has been published has come by way of the files of the railroad owning the car.

Folks,
It seems that about any museum that has a wood car collection has a Barney & Smith car. After reading the book on them, I am not surprised. They built a lot of passenger cars in between getting flooded several times.

I think that the Curzon sleeping car that is displayed at the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel is especially interesting. It is fairly intact and the museum has just built a car barn to protect their collection of wood of several wood cars.

Another one arrived at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum fairly recently. The Duluth sleeping car was built in 1902 and is now getting restored; it sits on six-wheel trucks and piping for the air brakes is going back under the car.

Ted Miles

The museum in Cranbrook, BC has two Barney & Smith cars, the CURZON a sleeper observation built for the Soo Line in 1907 specifically for international service on the joint CPR/Soo Soo-Spokane route, and the OMENEE a 12-1 sleeper built in 1906 for general service on the Soo Line. Interestingly, while only a year apart in construction, the cars have different styling treatments.

https://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/soospokane/curzon.html
https://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/soospokane/omemeestory01.html

The DSS&A 10-1 sleeper DULUTH, recently acquired by the Mid-Continent museum was built by Barney & Smith in 1902, and again varies in style from the cars of a few years later.

https://www.midcontinent.org/dssa-sleeping-car-duluth-fund-drive-begins/

These three cars certainly give a good representation of Barney & Smith production during the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, artifacts from the several decades that B&S was in business prior to that are totally missing.

All,

There has to be someone, Historical Society out there has to have SMITH and BARNEY Co. Photos, Drawings etc.. ?

Mr. Starr

The Carillon Park in Dayton OH has a Barney and Smith private car in a building. They may have some records in their files. They also have several other items including an original B&O 'Grasshopper' and a fireless cooker from the old NCR plant.


Fred Heilich

The Northwest Ry Museum at Snoqualmie, WA has these B&S cars:

American Baptist Publication Society - Chapel Car 5 - Messenger of Peace
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #52
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #213
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #213
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #218
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #272
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #275
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #276
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway #556

You can see details here: https://trainmuseum.org/index.php/resea ... ge-objects

Yeah, I was just searching the Carillon Park web site for info on D&M 100, which was built by B&S in 1903. I didn't bother to mention it because I firmly believe that private cars and business cars are atypical and not representative of the cars the public rode. I also see some articles about a nicely restored interurban car body, also built in 1903 by B&S, that will become part of the seating in their food court???? How is that going to work? Anyway, better the body be inside than not.

I've never been able to tell if Carillon Park has much of a historic archives; their web site doesn't say much, but then again it doesn't say much about the preserved artifacts, either. It seems to be a rather eclectic collection of 'stuff' that somehow relates to the development of Dayton rather than a true museum, but I could be wrong.

Information on Northern Pacific B&S cars:

http://www.nprha.org/_layouts/15/osssea ... 26%20Smith