We have acquired this car from North Alabama Railroad Museum. It arrived yesterday.

For future reference, the body weighs about 40,000.

Bill -

Terrific! Will the car be painted back to C&EI to fit with the museum site there in Terre Haute? Or.....?

Les

It'd be nice to see it painted back in it's original WW2 paint and markings.
Just sayin'. So few of these out there today are painted as such...

Current plan is to restore it to WWII Pullman look...if we can figure out it's number etc. Nobody seems to know the C&EI number to reference back from.

It is missing four sets of window tracks,, besides the plated spots. Anybody got some Pullman windows or tracks they want to part with?

Bill

Assuming they are the original Allied Full Cushioned Trucks the original number of the car will be painted on the trucks right underneath the car. We have two troops sleepers and original numbers were painted on both of them, however one the cars had different numbers at each end of the car, so at least one of the trucks was swapped out at one point. If they have the same number there is a pretty good chance it is the as built number. We also found the weight of the car (with trucks) painted on the frame of one of them.

Elgin County Railway Museum

I believe the WP Museum at Portola has one of these, too.

K5,

L&N was notorious for grinding off any painted on markings from previous previous owners. I'll look the trucks over real good again. Are you talking about the upper face of the trucks or on the side frames some place?

Bill

It looks as if you can ride the car at Elgin- would this be correct and is this the only place in the country you can ride one of these?

Thanks,

Joshua

Joshua -

Little River Rail Road out of Coldwater, Michigan has a Pullman troop sleeper that they use as a concession car on their trains. Here's a photo:

http://www.railroadmichigan.com/littleriver1163.jpg

The car has some modifications (windows) and interior floor as I recall. You can actually buy goodies in the car and eat at tables set up for riders. For many years, the car was painted in the railroads GM&O inspired maroon and red, but appears to have been repainted recently back to Pullman Green. Not only do you get a chance to ride in one of these cars, you also get some authentic coal smoke passing by the open windows from the LRRR steam locomotive on the front end! Which is what many of the troops also experienced when the cars were being used for their original purpose!

A couple of additional comments. As you can see, this car has its original Allied "Full-Cushion" high speed trucks. It was reported that these were very rough riding, and I can confirm that Little River's car rides rough. However, some of this may be due to the branch line nature of their trackage. Also, note that this car has steps in the center door. There was a trap door on the inside to gain access. The early cars built, all had these steps, but later in the program, they went to a strap step type access and did away with the trap door steps completely. The idea was that the cars were meant for troops and most of these guys were quite capable of climbing up into the cars.

Somewhere I have a numbering roster for the cars, but can't lay my hands on it right now. The first car built was number 7000 as I recall. We have a troop sleeper at Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum which we use as a display car. We were never able to find the original number (even though we have the original "high-speed" trucks) and when the car was originally restored for displays, it was numbered 7000. That might have incorrectly given folks the idea that it was the original car. When the car was restored a second time more recently, it was given the number 7256, which is within the number series for the cars.

Les

The Walkersville Southern Railroad in Maryland has a troop car as well. It was one of the original pieces of rolling stock when the company first started operating in the 1990s, and it was acquired from an auction of assets from the bankrupt EnterTrainment Line that had run over the Maryland Midland Railway. The car arrived completely gutted and window-free, but within a few months the WS had it ready for service. Later, as the WS acquired better cars for passenger service, it parked its ex-troop car, and in recent years it was rebuilt again on the interior as a kitchen car to accompany WS dinner trains.

Les,

I think your car should be in the 8000 or 9000 series. It's got ladders vs step wells in the center correct?

The step wells with traps is what sort of drew us to the one we just got, as well as being a C&EI car.

From what I've been able to glean searching the web, there are more cars still around without the traps than with them. Is there a listing of existing troop sleepers out there in cyberspace?

Bill

Bill -

Thanks for your note. The troop sleeper at our museum originally had the step wells, and the traps are still in the car floor, but inoperable. The car ended up as a Wabash Maintenance of Way car as their road number 5719. The car eventually became Norfolk and Western #565719. We don't know whether it was the Wabash or the N&W that removed the steps. One of them also put a false floor in the car so that the car floor was completely level, rather than having the "slope" that took the original boxcar type floor up to the level of regular passenger cars. When we tore that false floor out, we found the original red hard rubber floor pieces still in place, where they remain today. One other thing we had to do was to add pieces to both of the side doors as the Wabash or N&W cut those doors at the bottom to clear their new false floor. Rail equipment restoration is never easy! Good luck with the restoration of your ex-C&EI car.

Les

Les,

Very interesting. So does the car still have the steps in the well? It hard to tell from the pics on the ole web.

Ours has the old tiles but they are all toast.

Bill

Copied and pasted from the Park Service's Steamtown website:

"Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Troop Sleeper #3621. C3621, 81562

Troop Sleeper, #3621. Pullman Company built and operated 2400 cars for military travel between 1943 and 1946. Troop sleepers used a simple boxcar design with 30 crosswise triple-deck bunks. The cars were sold to the railroads after World War II. Railroads converted them into an assortment of work cars, as did the DL&W. DL&W purchased 11 including this car for the series 2111 - 2121. Late 1950s the series changed to 3611 to 3621. Donated to Steamtown NHS by Conrail, January 1990."

NPS Photo attached.

IIRC from research I did when the Museum of Transportation got its ex-MKT troop sleeper from the UP all the cars built in the first batch early in the war had steps at the side doors and all the ones built at the end of the war didn't. The second batch was built to handle troops moving from the European Theater of war to the Pacific one, and then were used to carry them home when restrictions on civilian travel ended with the end of the war.