Is there a job order roster for St. Louis Car Company floating around on the internet somewhere? I seem to recall looking at one somewhere but I can't remember whether it was in a book or on the net. In particulare, I am looking for information on the cars that ran in Dayton, Ohio and then went to Norman, Oklahoma. Thanks in advance.

Andy Nold
North Texas Historic Transportation, Inc.

Book with a complete job order roster:

From Horsecars to Streamliners: An Illustrated History of the St. Louis Car Company" by Allen R. Lind, Transort History Press, 1978.

I have a copy and it has a nicely done job order roster in the rear. If you want specifics, contact me offline or through private message.

Just remember that this is a list of orders -- not necessarily delivered cars.

There is an order listed for the Los Angeles and Redondo at the time it was converting from 3' steam to 42" electric. The listing even includes car numbers.

However, the minute book of the LA&R states that the company canceled the order because of delays in delivering the cars. Recently the account books of the company became available and they show the company constructing (or reconstructing) cars including the numbers listed in the order list in From Horsecars to Streamliners.

The LA&R is a road that I'm slowly researching. Published works on the line have limited, incomplete or even wrong information.

My work is aided by Minute and Stock books being at CSRM and the accounting records now at Stanford University Special Collections. The missing cash book is reported in a private collection and may come available in the near future.

If not mistaken, most of the corporate records and drawings for St Louis Car Co are preserved at Washington University, just outside St. Louis. I do not know what on line archival access there is, but we have gotten copies of prints for some of our cars, from the school. Probably requires a visit in person, and a fair amount of searching.

Bob Kutella

Brian,

Glad to hear that you are researching a very interesting line.

I agree little of substance has been written about it.

There are supposed to be a couple of their car up on the white Pass and Yukon.

Is that story true?

Ted Miles

I believe more than a couple went there. When I worked for the Ashby incarnation of Georgetown Loop, we purchased several composite trucks from White Pass which came from those cars, when White Pass was replacing them with all steel trucks. One set was fit to the Tahoe Belle (Lake Tahoe Ry and Nav. Co RATTLER). No idea what bcame of the others, presumably stored somewhere.

dave

Several rosters have stated that four cars used on the White Pass came from the LA&R. These are the four short (36'-4" over body) cars 218, 220, 222, and 224 built by Jackson & Sharp. The source of all of these may very well be Carl E. Mulvahill. I once wrote to Carl and he said that he recalled see this in some old White Pass records.

An inquiry years ago by Gordon Chappell to Orange Empire about these cars/report is what got me going into researching both the LA&R in total and the passenger cars of the White Pass.

In the last year one of the other members of the White Pass email group and I with some additional help tried to figure out where these cars came from.

The LA&R converted to electric in 1902 and rebuilt a number of cars into electric interurbans. Prior to that it reported having 22 passenger cars; so there is a possibility that the cars may have come from the LA&R.

Except, the road did not include any decrease in its number of passenger cars in the years involved. Likewise, now that the accounting journals and ledgers can be examined, these show no sale of passenger cars in the years. The books do show sales of steam locomotives and then a couple of years after conversion the sale one combine to the Mojave & Milltown.

Transcripts of White Pass accounting records posted by Bruce Pryor on the web (http://narrowmind.railfan.net/WPYR/records/records.html) show that these particular four cars were shipped from Chicago (paying the GN for the shipping to Seattle) and arrived in May, 1901 and where shopped in June and July of that year and entered service.

This information just does not match. The current theory is that these four cars came from an eastern narrow gauge that converted in the 1899-1901 era. Several candidates have been identified but non confirmed.

I now put it as a wonderful story, that is just that -- a story. Just like people wanting the two ex-Arizona cars on the White Pass to have come from the Jerome operation -- wrong years and size of cars. Evidence, including a photo, is that these two cars came from the Coronado Ry's 3' gauge operation at Morenci, Arizona.

I would be glad to hear from anyone who can provide information, one way or another about any of these cars

Brian,

Thanks for the reply. I will pass this on to Gordon Chappelle who does not see this.

Weather or not the cars remain the line which was both narrow gauge and standard and steam and electric was a most interesting story.

I assume that you have the story that was in the Western Railroader many years ago?

If you need it e-mail me off line and I'll see if I can dig one up for you.

Ted Miles