Word that the former PRR Broadway Limited 6-3 heavyweight Washington Square is being scrapped prompted me to ask Does anyone have any information on the current location and condition of this car, also formerly of the Royal American Shows, pictured at:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=1098899

and in better times:

http://canadasouthern.com/caso/images/nyc-2599.jpg

I hate when scrap prices go up...we lose so much.

Are you sure that's the same car? If it is it has been heavily modified.

The open platform's been closed in, but the window pattern is the same.

Was this car near Brooksville Fl ?

Michael Thomas

Yes, it was once at Brooksville, FL. This was one of four cars I bought from Royal American and sold to a man in Brooksville for a proposed office complex that was never built due to the man's death. His estate sold the cars to man in South Florida who wanted to restore them as Royal American cars on the exterior and convert the interiors to shops and offices. I don't think that project was completed, either and the car wound up with yet another owner whose plans I don't know.

Royal American changed the car drastically. They installed a diesel generator set in the former observation lounge. The car's open platform had been changed to a solarium before RAS got it.
The car also served as the "pie car" for carnival workers.

When I was going through the car after I bought it, I found a berth ladder marked "Seneca Valley" and still have that along with some of the light fixtures and other small items I kept.

I don't recall the dates on these sales but mid to late 1970's would cover them.

Thanks, Jim. Do you know the location of these cars today?

This car was reported as being in the FEC Haileah Yard some years ago. Ownership was possibly the group restoring the FEC 253 Engine or they were doing work for another organization, possibly the dubious Dorothy Walker Bush Museum of Hollywood, FL.The Director of the DWBM was in the news a few years ago over some allegations on other RR equipment. I have not heard of the car since. Google maps shows some cars on a siding south of the yard. I do not know the date or if this is the same car. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=25.795328,-80.312581&cp=20&bav=on.2,or.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
Bing Birdseye view maps shows some equipment in the yard with the FEC Steamer but this equipment was to have been moved several years ago to a new site according to some outdated websites. Maybe the car ended up with them.
Hope this helps
Randy

"The open platform's been closed in, but the window pattern is the same."

The rebuilding of the car into a solarium observation was done either in 1938, when its Plan subclass lettering changed three times or in 1941, which was its last plan change. Not sure which subletter indicates the rebuilding but its final plan was 3988H.

"Google maps shows some cars on a siding south of the yard. I do not know the date or if this is the same car."

Those are the cars that the Seneca Valley was with, with the car being second from the right end. The problem with the view is that it is dated. If you go to street view you can find nothing in the siding at all, from either side of the siding (went to street view for the next road east and it shows a clear siding) so it was moved after the satillite view was taken.

Both the Seneca Valley and sister car Tioga Valley show the same modifications when checking the Pullman database, with the changes being made within a couple of days of each other. Tioga Valley was sold to the NYC but apparently not placed in Pullman lease service... maybe the Canada Southern website my yield some ideas as to what happened to the car.

The open-platform Valley cars were replaced in 1938 by the Dreyfuss-styled streamlined 20th Century obs cars and consists. The Valley cars were converted (at least 6 were) to "State" cars (Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc) for use as mid-train cars on the newly-instituited "New England States" train between Boston and Chicago. This train replaced the Boston section of the Century. The State cars were occasionally used as tail cars on the NES.

At least two Valley cars (Genesee and Catskill Valleys) became observation-lounge cars for the 1939 inaugural edition of the "Pacemaker", the all-coach reserved-seat NY-Chicago train. They were painted in two-tone gray for that service, and numbered rather than named. They were replaced a year later by some bizzare-looking clerestory roofed round-end coach-obs cars, made out of standard NYC four-axle heavyweight coaches.

Howard P.