Apparently former Rock Island 760, no location given, photos show it sitting truckless on the ground. This one is unique, it appears to have a complete RPO interior, almost like a time capsule. Does anyone know why it was saved in this condition? It really seems like something that should be donated to a museum, not attempted to be sold, as the cost of transport and replacement trucks alone will be too much for a lot of museums. It also seems like a car that could tell a story.

Edit: removed the link to an ad, but I am sure anyone can find it.

This car and an SP passenger car both repeat listings for Ozark. The cars (plus others) are located someplace in Texas per the listing on the SP car.
The original listing carried several cars, all intact, without any trucks per my memory.

I can think of several museums in the area served by the Rock Island for which it would be a good fit, at a nominal (i.e. close to zero) price.

This is part of the group that was for sale on Ozark awhile back...
Iowa pacific got at least one of them....the pride of Texas diner lounge..
It was all from an estate or some such in Texas...

Iowa Pacific didn't get any of those cars. The Pride of Texas (POT) car went to The Texas Compound in Austin, TX.

The CRI&P RPO car is a former NYC 22 roomette sleeper Peekskill Bay. Sold to Rock Island in 1958 and converted to a baggage RPO real late - in 1965. Not sure how it ended up at the Whistle Stop Ranch, but like many of the cars there is sits on blocks with no trucks or underbody equipment. I'm sure the owners would make a good deal on the car.

Not nearly as appealing with this history.

Real late for sure. Which begs the question; was this the last "new" RPO put into service?

Les

The cars in question belonged to Brian B. Garrett, and were located at his Whistle Stop Ranch in Flint, TX. The nee-SP Sunset Limited "Pride of Texas" 14 seat club lounge-32 seat diner he owned was nee-SP #10408 (later Amtrak #8321). It was wrecked at an unknown date and was sold to Garrett in 1976.

Iowa Pacific did get a "Pride of Texas" club lounge-diner, the nee-SP #10411 (later Amtrak #8324) from Dave Varilek in 2014.

These "Pride of Texas" cars are from the order SP placed with the Budd Company in June 1948 for 76 cars to re-equip the Sunset Limited. The cars were built in Budd Lot #040, and were delivered between March and July 1950. The order consisted of 5 "Pride of Texas" club lounge-diners, 6 baggage-RPOs, 13 44 seat leg rest chairs, 5 baggage-16 bunk dormitories, 5 divided 48 seat chairs (with conductor's desk and news stand), 6 "Audubon" 48 seat diners, 6 "French Quarter" 40 seat club lounges (with valet room, shower, and stewardess' room), and 30 10RM-6DB sleepers (5 of these were built with blunt ends and marker lights for end-of-train use). The order also included 2 44 seat leg rest chairs for the Golden State.

Specifically, the "Pride of Texas" cars, Budd Lot #9609-040, SP #10407-#10411, Class 83-DL-2, were delivered in July 1950, were reconfigured in 1957 to 14 seat club lounge-22 seat grill diners, and were reconfigured in 1968 back to 14 seat club lounge-32 seat diners. All 5 were sold to Amtrak in 1971 as #8320-#8324.



NYC 22RM sleeper #10416 Peekskill Bay (P-S, Lot #6790, Plan #4122), was 1 of 45 such sleepers (#10400-#10444) built by P-S in that Lot, which was ordered in December 1945; the cars were delivered between July and October 1948 (the Peekskill Bay was delivered in September). Besides the wrecked #10402 Tampa Bay (wrecked sometime in 1958 at an unknown location, retired in March 1959), NYC sold the remaining 44 cars to 3 different roads in 1958-1959:

23 were sold in 1958 to CN and were renamed to the Val-series, as #2052-#2074:

Except for the burned #2072 Val Royal (ex-NYC #10412 Quincy Bay, burned sometime in 1965 at Transcona, Manitoba) and the wrecked #2065 Valmont (ex-NYC #10438 Chaumont Bay, wrecked in March 1972 at an unknown location), the remaining 21 cars made it to the VIA Rail era, with the majority later rebuilt to either baggage-dormitories or leg rest chairs, and many of these are still floating around in various places in the U.S. and Canada.

11 were sold in 1959 to IC:

4 of these were renamed to the F-series (named for towns on the line, i.e. Fernwood and Flossmoor) but were later rebuilt to other configurations:

___2 were rebuilt as baggage-60' RPO's #156 and #157 in 1963 and 1964 respectively, and were further rebuilt to straight baggage cars #1840 and #1837 in 1970 and 1968 respectively. Both were retired in 1971 and scrapped.

___2 were rebuilt as lunch counter-diner lounges #4202 and #4203 in 1964 and 1966 respectively. The #4202 was retired in 1971 and sold to C.W. Taylor, later went to the depot in Lincoln, IL, and was acquired by Iowa Pacific in 2014. The #4203 was leased to Amtrak and was wrecked in the consist of the City of New Orleans at Tonti, IL, on 6/10/1971.

3 of these were rebuilt in 1961 and 1963 as baggage-60' RPO's #151-#152 (1961) and #155 (1963). Like the #156 and #157, these were also further rebuilt to straight baggage cars #1831-#1832 and #1835 in 1968. The #1831-#1832 were retired in 1971 and scrapped; the #1835 was wrecked at Lodi, IL, sometime in 1968.

1 of these was placed in dormitory service as #1999 and was rebuilt in 1961 to baggage-60' RPO #150. It was also further rebuilt to straight baggage car #1830 in 1968, and was retired in 1971 and scrapped.

3 of these were rebuilt in 1962 to baggage cars #1820-#1822. The #1820-#1821 were retired in 1971 and scrapped. The #1822 was leased to Amtrak and was wrecked in the consist of the City of New Orleans at Tonti, IL, on 6/10/1971.

10 were sold in 1959 to CRI&P:

4 of these were rebuilt in 1959 to baggage cars #864-#867. The #867 (the nee-Peekskill Bay) was further rebuilt in 1965 to baggage-60' RPO #760 as posted above by Topfuel. It and the other 3 baggage cars were sold to Ringling Brothers in 1968. The Peekskill Bay/#867/#760 is the first of these 4 that I've seen turn up, so thanks to PMC for starting this thread and to Topfuel for posting the car's heritage!

6 of these were rebuilt in 1959 to baggage-60' RPO's #754-#759, and all 6 were also sold to Ringling Brothers in 1968. 5 of these 6 (the ex-#755 to #759) are known to have been scrapped: the ex-#755 to #758 in 1990 and the ex-#759 in 1993.

To answer Les' question about whether or not the #760 was the last RPO built (or rebuilt): AT&SF received new RPO's from Budd in 1964, and UP received new RPO's from Budd in 1963, so yes, the #760 appears to qualify as the last one.

_________________
Additions and corrections are welcome. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Ted. Then perhaps, as the "last" RPO put into service, it might be more of an historic car after all and then worthy of preservation!

Les

My recollection is that the US Postal Service started phasing out most rail carriage of mail in approximately 1966-67, which precipitated the passenger rail crisis that begat RailPax/Amtrak, as the lost of the then-substantial head-end traffic tipped huge numbers of passenger train from barely profitable/slight money-loser to vastly unprofitable overnight.

In my native Harrisburg-to-Buffalo PRR region, the daily daytime Harrisburg-Buffalo day trains and night mail trains swiftly went from five or six cars (mostly mail) to only a baggage car and coach, then overnight only tri-weekly.

This relative short usage life would help to explain the immaculate interior of this car. I wish it had been available when friends and I were crafting parts for the RPO exhibit for the Post Office Museum in D.C. years ago....... and I'm sure the Rock Island's accountants at the time wished they had had a psychic available to tell them not to waste the rebuild.

I first saw this listing on the Rock Island closed group on facebook, a link to the description without a price. I went back and looked at the Ozark passenger car listings and see that they want $9500 for this car, which in my opinion is delusional, but it isn't my property. Whoever buys it will need a set of trucks (not so hard to find, there was a photo posted here about a year ago of a big pile of lightweight truck frames in WA I believe) but still need to be transported. Then around $10k for cranes on both ends and a truck, depending on how far you are from TX. Then the exterior work. I just wonder if anyone has those resources available. For comparison, there is an old B&O heavyweight baggage car on Ozark for $500, that seems more reasonable to me.

Would be interesting to see a photo of the car when it was in service for the Rock Island in its RPO/baggage configuration.


Les

Looks like it is going to the Oklahoma Railway Museum, a very appropriate place:

https://www.facebook.com/OKRailwayMuseu ... 6270628020