This photo by Jack Pehowic just crossed my Facebook feed:



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

"Creek Yard," south end of Sunbury, Pa.: NS 11Z with an MBTA bilevel passes a train of work equipment "camp cars" complete with a NS "Dining Car" obviously converted from a passenger car.

Does anyone know the heritage of this/these "dining" car(s), are there more than one, and what did NS kitbash for this/these (and thus take out of future preservation, or preserve further)? An RBBX circus train car?

Without knowing the actual heritage of that car, us passenger car fans will have some fun identifying it's history. It looks like a former Pullman Standard 1949-era 10-6, judging by the window pattern. Probably one that used to have fluted sides. However, those trucks would be retrofit for such a car. It may be a former VIA Daynighter coach converted from such a 10-6, and then NS retrofitted the trucks? I'm sure we'll figure it out shortly. Either way, it sure looks like a new build.

They still have work trains and camp cars?

Yep. The camp cars look like prefab boxes on flat cars. There was a string of them parked in Orrville, OH for an extended period a couple years ago when a lot of work was being done on NS's ex-PFtW&C line. There certainly weren't any diners in the consist at that time, though.

I confess that I was startled by this as well. Creek Yard had long been a parking spot for such trains during MOW seasons, but I had understood recent FRA mandates forced the parking of such trains MUCH further away from active tracks than previously permitted. I had thought that Creek Yard's camp-train storage, as well as some other spots in central Pa. previously used for this purpose (such as one roadside track in Enola), had been retired from such use, with NS increasingly using motels for such housing. Sunbury is not the "middle of nowhere" compared to the rural areas of West Va. N&W turf that would encourage such bunk trains over non-existent lodging, but....

The "prefab boxes on flatcars" MOW camp trains have been used by Conrail since the 1980s, and possibly even by PC before that. I had seen trains of such cars at Creek for ages, but never with any former passenger car converted for dining or other use there.

I believe there are now six converted passenger cars, one heavyweight and five lightweight.

Check out the Altoonaworks.info website for more info. Look under NS Office Car Special for a roster of all the company service passenger and special use cars. Photos for many are posted there as well.

Tim Andrews
Chattanooga, TN

followed above to altoonaworks.info, and Sandy Creek jumped right out at me, Wick Moorman's private car! Boy, I thought I kept up onPV's.......

This page and the roster page:
http://www.altoonaworks.info/pics/ocs.html

say the car in question was rebuilt from an AOE (American Orient Express) sleeper in 2016, and they have another AOE car similarly rebuilt.

Good luck figuring out which ones, though.

In January & February of this year we had two different track gangs come thru our area of Alabama. Each having their own dining car. The first was a silver sided car# NS960424MW. Couple weeks later a heavy weight car# NW521414 with a name "Spirit of Tim Drake". This heavy weight was a treat to see. This one was assigned to the NS Super Dual Rail Gang R-3 by the wording on another car.

I see them every summer for a few weeks parked at a siding by the Roland Ave underpass in Chambersburg PA.

CSX went to using motels and old school buses for work crews years ago.