With a Litlte Help From My Friends

This hobby is great for making friends. Many have similar interests but are much more into research and have access to to information that you may never know existed. I have one such friend when it comes to passenger cars, trains and how they all work together. On one train I am modeling, the Bar Harbor Express, an over night train with sleepers from Washington DC, Philadelphia and NYC, going to Ellsworth, Maine, where passengers could be bused (or limousined) to Bar Harbor for vacation. Below is the consist for the summer only train from 1957.

There are three 10-6 sleepers listed on each train, and the New Haven did not have any so I had always figured they were PRR cars. I have collected three of the Walthers undecorated kits with out the skirting to model these sleepers. I also have one decorated with skirts. Then last summer my friend informs me that there is paper work showing the use of both Atlantic Coast Line and Florida East Coast cars on the train. This surprised me, but it really should not. Both of these southern roads are busiest in the winter with northerners escaping to the sun and fun of Florida. They end up being surplus in the summer months. I started looking on how to model these cars. Walthers has made the correct cars for both roads so it was a matter of tracking down out of production cars. Embay and train shows seemed the best route, but another friend of mine happened to have two ACL cars in his stash he was willing to sell me. know unfortunately we have no paper work stating what cars from either road were used, so I was happy with any. The cars my friend had are former C&O cars the ACL purchased in 1950 to bolster it's fleet of 10-6 cars. These cars had the 6 double bedrooms located in the center of the car for a superior ride in those rooms. The only work I have done on the cars is to add handrails in the aisle, window shades and a few passengers. Plus car names.

Being able to model some different cars breaks up the appearance of trains and leads to some interesting conversations. I am still on the look out for a Florida East Coast 10-6!