Got this great information from Marty Obed, the ELHS' passenger car advisor: - --------------------------------------- Paul: I did some digging in the files regarding the heritage of EL rider cars R-29 and R-30. The roster pages in one of my copies of the 1966 EL passenger car diagram book show the following: EL mail & dorm #623 to rider R-29 on January 23, 1968; EL mail & dorm #626 to rider R-30 on April 5, 1968. What's confusing is that there are some other dates noted but without explanation: EL #623 shows the date 12-13-66 and EL #626 shows the date 3-23-67. There's no mention of any conversion of the cars from mail/dorm configuration to mail/baggage. Checking the interline passenger equipment registers, the March 1964 edition shows all cars in Erie series 622-626 as mail/dormitories. The March 1966 shows Erie 623 changed to EL 653, but still a mail/dorm. March 1967 shows EL 653 as a "baggage & mail." The March 1968 register shows EL 653 changed to EL 623 and Erie 626 changed to EL 626 but still a mail/dorm. Both cars are gone from the March 1969 register. I suspect that the above dates of renumbering to rider cars are correct, but somehow the information didn't make it in time for the 1968 passenger register and so shows up finally in 1969. For some years I had thought that the information stating that two mail/dorm cars had been rebuilt to mail/baggage was incorrect. I had seen several pictures of Erie 626 and it was clearly a mail/dorm. However, with the publication of Larry DeYoung's EL color book on freight and passenger equipment, a photo of 626 as an EL mail/baggage confirmed the conversion, Still, it is interesting that the need for RPOs did not last for very long thereafter. Please feel free to share this information with the EL group. Marty. ------------------------------------------------------------ Visit the erielack photopage at http://el-list.railfan.net ------------------------------
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