I thought I would inquire to the vast knowledge base of this forum to ask a question that I have not been able to find the answer to, yet have spent considerable time attempting to find the answer... My question is regarding the final disposition of the 1910 built Pullman private car "Westmoreland"... This car was built for H.C. Frick and was later assigned to C.J Graham of the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad. Now Frick died December 2, 1919... and his daughter Helen took possession of the car I assume at some point afterwards...Now the car was used by the daughter apparently once after the death of her father, and then was moved by the daughter to Prides Crossing MA ( her summer home ) to what is said to be a concrete museum ? ( is it possible this is the United Shoe Machinery Company building built in 1902 , which ( for a long time ) was the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world ?

... In addition to all this, at some point in 1926 the car was substantially rebuilt. The timeline is such that Frick died, the daughter made one trip, the car went to Prides Crossing MA, and for some reason it was rebuilt in 1926....

Advance the timeline to 1940, when Mrs. Frick was introduced to then Presidential candidate Wendell Wilke ( by C.J. Graham ) , who was ultimately defeated in the election. It was Helen Frick's intent to loan the car to the future President, but when that didn't happen the car was put back in storage. Shortly after the election the car was then given to C.J Graham for his personal use as the chairman of the board of the Pittsburgh and West Virginia. However there was apparently one stipulation to the gift of the car to C.J. Graham, and that was, upon his retirement from railroading, the car was to be immediately scrapped...

My question is, does anyone know for a fact that these events happened as outlined above ? I have been unable to find the retirement date of C.J Graham, which in theory would have triggered the scrapping of the car... and for that matter Helen Clay Frick died in Pittsburgh at age 96 in 1984... which was long after Norfolk and Western took over the P&WV operation in 1964....In theory she would have been alive to insure that C.J. Graham scrapped the car...

On a side note, another P&WV car ( the 300 ) survives if perhaps only temporarily... This car which started life as NYC 301, and also carried numbers 6 and 16, and USRA 3 became P&WV 400 Vancoram before becoming W. Graham Claytor Jr's private car New River. I believe it changed hands once or twice before being pushed out back and stored at TVRM... where it sits today ( privately owned ) , the victim of a failed restoration effort.....

An interesting tale of two cars, that unfortunately did not end very well.. Perhaps someone can add a bit more history to this story...?


Dean Levin

recent photographs of P&WV car 400 ... ( mentioned above )


Dean Levin

Clark Johnson shot circa 1955

Here's the 300 at Louisville Union Station for a Kentucky Derby, date unknown.
-JH

The story I heard is that the car had been on loan to the P&WV for years, and at some point Helen Frick saw "what they had done to Papa's car" and had it cut up at once. She was not a fan of the modernization that took place inside. H. C. had always taken good care of the car...even keeping it in it's own concrete building.

There is a photo of the car and china from the Westmoreland in the Frick House in Pittsburg...a great museum house worth visiting.

Didn't the P&WV also own an older car, the Mather, at one point? What happened to that car? Termites?

T7

I just realized that in the photo of the gentleman in the observation lounge of the 300, what the black box on the table is. It's a Zenith Trans Oceanic radio, a very high-end and portable radio from the tube era. It appears to be a B600 model. These could operate off of battery as well as normal AC power.

Is this it?

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31524&p=159531#p159531