Time flies when working on the railroad, and there are many updates to show for it. These include a new freight yard and downtown industries to switch (subject to a new post), and, more importantly, a fully-operational and mostly modeled coach yard. As I wind down the layout work for the year to get back to my other hobbies, there are significant updates to show here. Moreover, there is more to learn about the fascinating dimensions of Pullman sleeping car operation in the 1950s (now railroad history) and how it will be modeled and operated in Cascadia.
The Powell Street Coach Yard has taken shape, now fully operational and with most of its facilities completed and placed. Based on the coach yards of the West Coast, primarily Southern Pacific's yards in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, since these are well-documented, it now has the required facilities typical of an urban coach yard.
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| View down the future service roadway to the Locker/Car Service building at the Powell Street Coach Yard. Pullmans are lined up along the roadway for easier cleaning and service between assignments. |
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View into the main part of the coach yard, illustrating its main facilities, from L-R: Commissary, Pullman Building, Car Cleaning and Locker, and Car Repair Shop. The gap between cars is for a service roadway to gain access to cars for fast cleaning and servicing. New cars for the pool include a 12-1 sleeper (SP Elkhorn, operated by Pullman) and to its right an unusual 'Night' Series 14 single-bedroom sleeper.
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| A closer view of 14 single bedroom Night Line, a 1927-built experimental Pullman to attract more business travelers. Now in the Pullman Pool, this is a rare survivor, as many of these cars were bought by railroads (Southern Pacific bought several) and converted into baggage dormitories. Often assigned by Pullman to the D&RGW Royal Gorge, here it is in Cascadia via its connection to the Royal Gorge on the WP/GN/ATSF 'Gateway Limited'. |
New Facilities
Pullman Building: Since the last post, I have added a few new structures to the coach yard. These include the Pullman Building, a requisite facility in a coach yard where all Pullman-related business would be conducted. This includes administration for managing reservations on its cars in the territory on all railroads serving it, coordinating fleet availability and movement to support existing and anticipated traffic, as well as a section house for Pullman porters awaiting duty assignments. This facility was built over a long weekend and is located next to the commissary.
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View of the recently-completed Pullman Building, a project for the long Presidents Day weekend. The lower level contains offices and is the nerve center for the region's Pullman fleet operations, while upper floors provide boarding for porters, conductors and others between assignments. Behind it is the Commissary Building, which stocks Pullman-operated restaurant, parlor and lounge cars in service. An express refrigerator car is on the adjacent track, recently unloaded of fresh food, spirits and seasonal produce for stocking the commissary (immediately to the left of the Pullman Building).
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| Commissary building is conveniently placed to serve both the coach yard and adjacent station tracks. While one track is occupied with refrigerator for provisioning, the other platform is ready for car service. Being the Pullman hub for the region's 7 railroads, the heavy reliance on Pullman Restaurant, parlor and lounge cars for food service on the many secondary trains justifies a full commissary. Southern Pacific being the major railroad serving Cascadia from the south, it may get its own commissary eventually. In the absence of dedicated commissaries, Pullman can be requisitioned for supplies in a pinch. |
Repair Shop: Following the completion of the Pullman Building I acquired an excellent kit for building a shop building. Pullman hubs were major facilities for maintaining the fleet in good working order. Although the region's main servicing center was located in Richmond, California, nearly 500 miles from Cascadia, Pullman concluded it needed a minor facility for inspecting and repairing its cars serving the Pacific Northwest. Modeled from a similar repair structure kit, this facility would have been added in the early 1920s as post-war business took off. This busy facility easily handles the one-to-three cars needing quick repairs at any given time and has the ability to take cars in for work on their undersides. The structure has full machine shops, staff and a dedicated track for servicing cars.
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| Car repair shop now placed in the coach yard with a dedicated repair track into the facility for inspection and repair of cars in a safe indoor space protected from the wet Cascadia climate. In addition to being equipped to machine and repair parts on site, the facility has its own power plant. This 1920s-built structure is showing its age with a few decades of accumulated soot and grime. |
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| Closeup view of the repair shop with a freshly-serviced tourist sleeper ready for its next assignment. In front of it is a Union Pacific club lounge car between assignments. The heart of Downtown Cascadia rises up behind the facilities. |
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| Repair shop on the workbench receiving its final weathering, details and assembly. |
Car Cleaning & Locker Building: Here I grabbed a built-up structure perfectly-suited to the task of providing a dedicated car cleaning facility. This building houses the laundry - hence the piping, water tank and chimney - as well as the provisions for cleaning cars between runs. It also serves as the 'locker' for supplies, such as fresh linen, soap, and other supplies used for keeping the sleepers well-stocked for their next assignments.
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| Ariel view of the coach yard with Car Cleaning & Locker building showcased at the top of the service roadway. This facility is busy around the clock, supporting cleaning staff for the quick turn of sleeping cars between assignments. Trains into Cascadia rely heavily on the Pullman Pool for its sleeping car services, so a full-service yard is in order. |
Battery and Mechanics Shop: The final building for the coach yard is the Battery and Mechanics Shop. This smaller building, adjacent to the main shop, primarily exists to provide simple mechanical repairs and to replace common parts, such as batteries, switches, wiring and removable tanks. Typically, as in Cascadia, this was a separate building from the mechanical shop, and they very often were adjacent.
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| Placed but to be completed is the Battery and Mechanics Shop building, immediately adjacent to the repair shop. With ground-level door for repair carts, this building makes replacement of batteries and similar equipment fast and easy. Here a generator car is awaiting an inspection on the repair track. Upon completion, this will be the last of the major facilities at the coach yard. The remaining trackside will provide parking for Pullman staff and a commercial building offering coffee shop and store for the convenience of the yard's personnel. |
More About Pullman Operation
This full-service coach yard is similar to the yard immediately off of Southern Pacific's San Francisco depot, which provided capacity for 20-30 cars to serve its commute pool as it fluctuates during the day. With a capacity for 30 passenger cars, this similarly-stubbed yard off the main depot will operate similarly in handling the sleeping car demands of all of the trains serving busy Cascadia.
The sleeping car provider: Throughout the 1950s and into the late 1960s, Pullman was America's sleeping car provider. As the operator of sleeping cars for the 57-9 railroads, who nominally owned most of their cars, Pullman had de facto control over how and when cars were used. If the Southern Pacific Cascade, for example, came up short on compartment and drawing room accommodation for a trip, Pullman got the needed cars for the job. If Southern Pacific did not have enough of this car on hand (4-4-2), it had the authority to requisition this accommodation from whatever was available in the region. Consequently, it would be a common sight to see a Union Pacific, Santa Fe or other road's sleeper filling in on this train.
How it operates: In operating the Cascadia coach yard, Pullman rules will be a major part of its job. Following historical practice, sleepers will be requisitioned from the railroads and pool to meet its accommodation needs. Northern Pacific's Mainstreeter relied almost exclusively on the Pullman Pool for its sleeper service. As a result, it was common to see a rainbow of sleepers from many roads - B&O, Pennsylvania, Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Illinois Central, and of course the Pullman Pool - on this train, typically with a Pullman Restaurant car bringing up the markers.
All passenger trains' sleeping car service operated this way: Even the railroads' premier 'name trains' relied on Pullman to manage its sleeping accommodation. This readily explains how oddball sleepers from different roads showed up in the photos of premier passenger trains of the era. There are countless examples of Union Pacific Cities trains with Pennsylvania sleepers, and I've seen photos of Pullman heavyweight sleepers in the otherwise pristine all-stainless Sunset Limited. If the railroad lacked the needed accommodation, Pullman substituted whatever it had access to - regardless of car ownership. As the operator, Pullman controlled American sleeping cars in this period. The substitutions add color, variety and interest to any operating session.
For Cascadia's depot operations, the depot superintendent has all the train orders for the day. The orders include the full train's consist (if originating) or interchange (if a through train), including the sleeping car orders. From these orders, the depot requisitions cars from the coach yard based on accommodation needs. Using the requisition, the coach yard pulls cars meeting the accommodation requirements requisitioned (a tourist train, for example, needs 5 12-1 [12 sections, 1 drawing room] sleepers for the outbound Great Northern's Western Star) and moves them to the main depot, handing them off to the depot crew building the train. The operation works similarly for terminating sleepers, where the crew sets them out to bring to the coach yard for cleaning and service for their next assignment.
Every day at the Cascadia depot: The process briefly described here happened every day all over the country throughout the 1950s. As needs changed, thousands of sleeping cars moved around the country to meet demand. If Oakland had a Scouts Special needing 15 extra cars, Pullman found them from whatever was available (mainly heavyweight sleepers from the railroads' General Service and Pullman Pools), assigned them to the train and moved them from wherever they were to the depot. If these cars could earn revenue while being moved, that would be preferred. If not, the urgency of their assignment would have them moved empty (deadhead) on the next available train. Often these deadhead movements would be assigned to mail trains or other passenger trains. Pullman - not the railroads - being the operator of passenger car service, used the railroads to get the right kind of car to where it was needed, regardless of its paint scheme or road name on its letterboard.
A learning experience even for seasoned operators: Pullman being a full operation in itself, adds a whole new dimension to modeling and operating sessions. Being an aspect of railroading that vanished over 55 years ago (Pullman officially shut down on December 31, 1968), and one that few of my operators have ever heard of or remember, Pullman service provides a uniquely interesting dimension to operating sessions. As such, there is a learning curve at first, since the car moves and operating principles are quite different from freight operation, but operators have expressed how much fun it turns out to be precisely because it is a different aspect of prototype modeling and operations. After sessions, operators comment on how fun and different this type of operation is, many confessing to having no idea about this aspect of railroading and its operation before trying it on my layout.
What makes operations fun is recreating an aspect of railroading you don't see everyday, and bringing to life a part of railroad history. Making a copy of what one can see any day in railfanning is one thing; using the modeling to restore, at least for a few hours, a vital part of railroading history - passenger trains with mail, express and Pullman operations, which all vanished by the arrival of Amtrak on May 1, 1971 - that is more fun in its process of discovery, learning a new dimension of railroading, then gaining a new level of appreciation for prototype railroad modeling. With the completion of the new coach yard, Pullman-specific jobs will come online in the next operating sessions.
Pullman operations are fun!
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