Illinois Central’s City of New Orleans, 1947-1971

 

Fred Klein, 2012, 2016

The City of New Orleans was Illinois Central’s coach-class train along its mainline from Chicago to New Orleans. The City was the coach service counterpart to IC’s first class Panama Limited. Like other major railroads, Illinois Central wanted to revamp its trains with colorful streamliners after the nation came out of the depression in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The City replaced the older heavyweight train called the Creole. The City of New Orleans ran as a day train and took 16 hours to complete its journey. It was also a popular train for trips between intermediate stops along the way, and had Louisville and St. Louis sections too. The IC orange and brown colors make this one of the most beautiful trains of the streamline era.

 

Pullman Standard completed the long-distance coach cars for the train in 1947 after the war. The remainder of the City of New Orleans cars (baggage-dormitory, diner, lounge and observation) were rebuilt by IC in their own shops from heavyweight cars, also in 1947. The cars were rebuilt with smooth sides and looked very similar to the lightweight cars, but had slightly higher roofs (the clerestories were covered), should have been shorter (80’ vs. the 85’ typical of lightweight cars), and had 6-wheel heavyweight trucks. In 1967, a dome car purchased from the Missouri Pacific was added.

 

Illinois Central’s City of New Orleans at Chicago’s Grand Crossing Overpass on March 31, 1964.

 

The City of New Orleans in Chicago in July 1966. On this late date in the City’s career, E8 and E9 locomotives are the norm. Note the flexivans painted in matching brown and orange colors (used for mail storage) on a flat car, followed by an RPO and a baggage car. Flexivans started appearing in the mid-1960s and are too late for the late 1940s-early 1950s era train modeled here. See my page on the IC Green Diamond train for a later coach train that uses mail trailers.

 

 

 

Three photos of the City of New Orleans leaving Chicago on September 16, 1968, taken from 18^th street. This is a long train loaded with passengers after the Democratic National Convention. Note the late “eyeball” logo on the nose of the leading E8 diesel and the modernized lettering on the locomotive side. Even though the train is later than the consist listed below of the model train, the car types are very similar. Starting in the early 1960s, a dome car was often added to long distance IC trains. The domes were leased from the Northern Pacific and were always repainted in IC colors to have a consistent color scheme, a point of good appearance that the president of the IC always insisted on. Photos by Bob Collidge.

 

 

The consist is from Wayner’s Passenger train consists 1923-1973, page 46, of the train as it arrived in Memphis on September 10, 1948.

 

 

 

The coaches of the City of New Orleans are easy to model in N scale because the Con-cor “generic” coach in IC orange and brown colors is close to the prototype and easy to obtain. Pullman Standard built coaches for both IC (56 seat) and Great Northern (60 seat, on which the Con-cor model is based) in 1947. Great Northern termed its 60-seat coaches “short haul”, which meant the seats did not fully recline like those in the “long haul” coaches that were used for sleeping on trains like the Empire Builder. The Con-cor model has an extra small window at each end for the ladies and men’s lounges, compared to the IC coach. The Intermountain diner and observation cars are similar designs from the same era but the windows do not match exactly. Specialty cars like dormitories and lounge cars have not been made in N scale and require substitutes (or custom manufacture). Life-like has made the E6, E7 and E8 diesels in IC colors. One can then make a prototypical mix of E units for any time during the 40s, 50s and 60s.

 

 

Power and RPO car

 

The E7 diesels introduced in 1946 are appropriate and prototypical for this era train. These are factory-painted Life-like models. The railway post office car with its 60’ RPO compartment and 25’ mail storage section is typical for the City of New Orleans, which relied heavily on the post office for income. As a day train, the City carried mail to serve city post offices along the route, but the Panama Limited was a night train and left along-the-line mail service to the City train. The RPO model is from Centralia Car Shops-Intermountain and is a Pullman Standard post-war car that adhered to post office specifications and is very similar to RPOs owned by the IC.

 

Baggage & mail storage cars

 

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Older Harriman heavyweight baggage cars and Pullman Standard baggage cars are prototypical to the IC and were used in the Panama Limited, City of New Orleans and other trains. The 60’ Harriman baggage car is a Wheels of Time model and the 72’ PS cars are from Walthers. The 85’ baggage car probably represents an IC rebuild of a heavyweight car, because I’m not sure IC bought any cars like this in this time period. The car is a Centralia Car Shops-Intermountain model. To be more prototypical I should replace the trucks with 6-wheel heavyweights, but I choose to keep the factory micro-trains trucks. The number of baggage cars varied with demand and I used three more than the 1948 consist partly as a substitute for the baggage-dorm car and because it was a booming postwar economy.

 

First coach group

 

The next car should be a baggage-dormitory for the use of the crew, but this car is not offered in N scale, nor are IC passenger decals. The 18-roomette car is a substitute for the baggage-dorm car. The car model was made and painted by Centralia car shops/Intermountain. The first coach is an older 60’ Harriman commute car. This coach is not in the published consist, but I included it for non-paying passengers. IC had many former employees, and a retired coach is suitable for “retired” non-revenue passengers. Next are two 85’ coaches, and a lunch-counter lounge. The 85’ coaches are Concor models which are similar to the IC prototype but have a couple of extra small windows for the lavatories. I do not have a model of the prototype lounge car, so a 1947 Pullman-built diner will have to do. The 60’ coach model was made by Wheels of Time and the other cars are Con-cor models.

 

Second coach group

 

The next four cars are 1947 56-seat coaches like those in the rest of the train. Photos I have seen of coaches (mostly from the 1960s) have the car number on the side near the door, but Concor letters its coaches with the car name in the center of the side. Coaches were assigned both numbers and names, and I do not know how they were lettered when first built. The prototype diner car was a heavyweight rebuild done by the IC in its own shops. The model is an “eastern diner” from Centralia Car Shops, which I use as a beautiful substitute car.

 

Third coach group

 

Four more coaches follow the diner. The first two of these coaches are Con-cor models, and the second two are Walthers models of a c1950 64-seat Pullman-Standard coach. The Walthers model is closer to the IC prototype with fewer lavatory windows. The prototype observation-tavern-lounge car was a former heavyweight car rebuilt by the IC shops. The Centralia Car Shops model is of a 2-1-1 observation, which is generally similar in appearance but with different windows. The prototype car had lounge space for coach passengers and had no bedrooms. I re-lettered the car “Illinois Central” from the original “Panama Limited”, to whose prototype the Intermountain car was more similar.

 

 

 

 

References

Heimburger, Donald, Illinois Central: Mainline of Mid-America, Heimburger House Publishing, 1995.

Kinkaid, James, IC/GM&O Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, Morning Sun Books. [I do not own this book, but it has numerous good color photos of passenger cars].

Lind, Alan, Limiteds along the lakefront: The Illinois Central in Chicago, Transposrt History Press, 1986.

Randall, David, From Zephyr to Amtrak, Prototype Publications, 1972.

Schafer, Mike, and Joe Welsh, Classic American Streamliners, Motorbooks International, 1997.

Somers, Paul, Illinois Central streamliners, TLC Publishing, 1995.

Stagner, Lloyd, Illinois Central in Color, Morning Sun Books, 1996.

 

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