While watching Restaurant Impossible the other night, I noticed a red and grey passenger car in the background of a few shots. Google maps confirms iits existence along Broad Street in North Versailles, PA, but I found nothing else about it online or in offline resources. Any idea of its history and current use?

TIA,

Rob

Is there a street view that Google can show so as to get some idea of what the car looks like? Or someone who can share a shot of this car? This would be the biggest help in determining the car's history.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.3753042 ... 312!8i6656

It is/was part of a cemetery headstone sales office. It appears there's a "For Rent" sign on it.

Nowhere near any live track, appears that somebody bought and made an office out of it just because it was cool (or cheap?).

It looks like there's a blue/white car number on the side, but it's too fuzzy to read in Google Street View. An in person photo/visit might reveal the number. Looks like the number is in the Amtrak lettering style? I'm also going to guess it may be a diner?

This is a P-S 56 seat chair (coach) from the large order jointly placed by C&O and NKP; NKP had a total of 10 of these chairs, and if I recall correctly, this is one of the NKP cars. It was listed for sale awhile back, I believe on Ozark Mountain; let me check my notes for the car number.

Actually a 52-seat C&O coach, the NKP coaches had an additional row of corrugation placing the edge of the corrugation along the bottom edge of the windows where the white stripe is.

Thank you for the info, gents. I wonder how it ended up there?

A little searching now that we know it is near a monument company (Design Monuments) reveals that it used to be a travel agency: https://books.google.com/books?id=vloFCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=%22design+monuments%22+train&source=bl&ots=GZvLSrUCai&sig=-lcx850ZLsPhDuDkhS-PK-cSmyk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid3ffgr87MAhWl8YMKHcZyDLkQ6AEIKTAE#v=onepage&q=%22design%20monuments%22%20train&f=false

Rob

Looking at my notes, I believe that this is C&O #1668, sold in 1958 to SAL as #6251, to SCL #5263, to Amtrak (same #), retired in 1976 and subsequently sold to George Pins.

That would explain both the color of the number plate and the corrugation still being intact. Many of the coaches that remained with the C&O lost their corrugation in later years though some other cars, such as sleepers, seemed to have done better.

Probably don't need to explain to a lot of people here that the Pullman pseudo stainless cars had a reputation for developing tremendous body cancer on the carbon steel under the stainless facade over time, especially if stored outdoors. Some restorations, namely Dave Corbitt's Eagle Canon and Chessie Club sister lounge cars had their stainless fluting removed, and the entire lower half of the car bodies on both sides replaced with new flat panel carbon steel, because the fluting had trapped water and rotted out the underlying carbon steel walls. Obviously, anyone seriously considering buying this car should insist on a close inspection of the entire car by someone familiar with restoration work before making an offer.

No need really... just do like Amtrak and some other owners did when they were inspecting cars for use. Take a rubber hammer and bang along the corrugation, if there's rust you'll hear it fall.

You usually don't even need a hammer. A good slap with the palm of your hand is often enough to cause it to make tinkling noises inside.

I'm surprised to read that this car would be the former C&O #1668-- I would have thought it more likely to have been one of the ex-C&O cars from the Port Authority of Allegheny County that weren't sold to Maryland DOT or Shore Line East. Likely candidates would have been #1614, 1616, 1621, 1639, or 1654. I don't know what the status of their side panels would have been during that ownership, though.

The position of the number board definitely suggests a car that got there by way of SAL, though.

None of the PaTrain cars had corrugation, at least not while they were in service... hard to say what they were like before them were rebuilt for use.