I understand this former B&O, Monon, and L&N PV was for sale in recent years. Originally built as a PV for F.A. Woolworth, I was wondering if anyone knows of the current ownership of this car.

I am also curious as to what the interior looks like, if it received a "modernized" (painted" interior over the original interior woodwork.

Any information would be appreciated.

Sometimes you get lucky on internet searches--found this in about two minutes. Wish some of my recent steam locomotive searches were as easy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivor_(Railroad_Car)

A good Wikipedia entry will have "external links." Hopefully these and the Wikipedia entry aren't too out of date:

http://www.aaprco.com/cgi/cars/cardispl ... vivor:type

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Easy_Riders.html

From a PV convention report from 2002:

http://www.trainweb.com/travelogues/ray ... 2j17f.html

Photos from above report:

http://www.trainweb.com/cgi-bin/photos/ ... urvivor-1/

http://www.trainweb.com/cgi-bin/photos/ ... urvivor-2/

http://www.trainweb.com/cgi-bin/photos/ ... urvivor-3/

Have fun.

Thanks, I found much of the same info as well, though it is a bit dated. The interior pics are "interesting." I wonder how much less the car would weigh with the "clutter" removed.

The reason I was asking was because the Monon Historical Society had a note on the car (scroll down):

http://www.monon.org/businesscars.html

It states that Stephensen has advertised the car for sale. Since the car isn't listed for sale on the usual brokerage web sites, I was curious if the sale statement was accurate, and if so, wanted more information than Google provides. I was just wondering if the car was sold, and if so, who owns it now.

My understanding is that the car is still owned by Stephensen...the last time I was by his siding in Atlanta it was still sitting there.

I have never been on the car but people tell me that one of the staterooms was removed to make the observation lounge larger and that aside from a bunch of junk hanging on the walls and plenty of grime...the car has not been heavily modified.

I would dispute some of the history for that car as found in the Monon website. The car was built as the "Japauldon" for Jessie Paul Donahue (see how they did that) who was one of the Woolworth daughters.

Barbara Hutton (Woolworth grand-daughter and neice to JPD) bought her own car (the Curleyhut) in 1931...and if you read "Poor Little Rich Girl" you will see that Barbara was living in England when she met and romanced Clark Gable...and both of those cars had been sold off by the time that happened. Poor Barbara was married to the first two of her many dead-beat husbands when she was an American PV owner...but not Mr. Gable. No idea how that story got started, the time-line just does not support it.

T7

David, T7 and the forum...

The Survivor has been out of date ( not having an Amtrak PC1 ) for at least 5-7 years by memory... The car has a list of problems that would require correction prior to it passing a PC1 including needing new springs, having the propane removed, and I would suspect at this point it would need a truck roll out ( PC2A ) and I think the car still has a spicer driver... which now has a deadline to be removed from Amtrak.....I also do not believe it has 27 pin communication lines which although previously required, was not being enforced, and now will be required. ( in the next year or so ) ...

Dante lives on the car in Atlanta ( just north of the Amtrak station ) ....and part of the problem in Atlanta is the NS switching costs to have the car added and removed to Amtrak... Overall, the car is in need of serious mechanical work, in conjunction with Atlanta being an expensive place to add and remove a car....

That is pretty much the current story with the car, as I know it


Dean Levin

Mr. Levin and Mr. Termite,

Thank you for your information. It was very helpful, and certainly something "beyond" what one could find with a Google search.

Interesting car.

David