Pennsylvania’s Admiral, c1950-c1955

 

Fred Klein, 2010, 2016

The Admiral was one of the Pennsylvania’s second tier trains in the New York to Chicago run, behind the exclusive Broadway Limited. The Admiral began operation in 1941 and was downgraded to a local in 1956. It was a working train with several head-end mail and express cars, and often more coaches than sleepers for budget travelers making the overnight run to Chicago or New York. The Admiral was upgraded about 1950 with new lightweight coaches and some sleepers, though this consist retains two heavyweight Pullmans. In the 1950s, all sleepers bore the name “Pennsylvania” because they were owned by the railroad after Pullman’s divestiture in 1948, which forced Pullman to sell sleepers back to the PRR, even though it operated them under contract. Brief information on the Admiral plus relevant links can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_(train).

 

From 1938 until the end of WWII, many PRR cars were painted in the Raymond Loewy-designed “Fleet of modernism” with a two-toned paint scheme with many pinstripes. After the war, starting in 1948, cars were gradually repainted in a simpler scheme of one shade of Tuscan red with three yellow pinstripes. The 1950 Admiral, like the 1949 Broadway Limited, would be painted in this simplified post-war scheme. The Admirals’ locomotive power during this time would have been the GG1 electric locomotive east of Harrisburg and a K4 Pacific 4-6-2 west of Harrisburg. After the war, some of the GG1 electric locomotives used in passenger service were repainted from their dark Brunswick green to the Tuscan color to match their passenger cars.

 

The consist of this early 1950s Admiral is from a wonderfully detailed website of the Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society describing the consists and switching movements of dozens of PRR trains. The webpage is called “24 hours at Harrisburg as of September 28, 1954”, http://kc.pennsyrr.com/passops/hbg_092854.php. The consist is for a train arriving at Harrisburg at 9:45 am from Chicago, yet the presence of a GG1 in the model train means it is departing Harrisburg to the east. All coaches and sleepers are from Chicago and destined for New York, and the storage mail and RPO were added at Pittsburgh and are for New York. Harrisburg is a major interchange point of east-west trains at which power was changed from steam to electric.

 

The backbone of this Admiral is a set of lightweight P85 coaches built by the PRR in its Altoona shops in 1947 to replace many of its older heavyweight coaches from the teens and twenties. Prototypical models of these P85 coaches are made by Centralia Car Shops/Intermountain. Prototypical models of the common B60 and MS60 baggage cars are available as kits from Hellgate models. Models of RPOs, sleepers and lounges are more difficult, though many models prototypical to the PRR are available but often a car substitution must be made. I am not a PRR modeler, but I’ve assembled enough cars to make a reasonable Admiral.

 

Table of prototype consist of Sept 26, 1954, and the model train

 

 

Power and head end

 

A GG1 electric locomotive powers this train, as is appropriate for an Admiral between Harrisburg and New York. The model is by Kato. Next are three B60 or MS60 baggage cars serving as mail storage cars. They are located in front of the RPO car, accessible by postal workers through a crawl passageway from the RPO, and thus isolated from the rest of the train according to postal regulations. Mail storage cars could have mail bags or parcels going from one post office to another, or mail to be processed in the RPO car en route and then returned to the storage cars. The baggage-mail (RPO) car used on the actual Admiral is a 70’ BM70m, and the model is a BM70k car with a 60’ RPO compartment made by Kato and from the Broadway Limited set.

 

More head end cars and coaches

 

Next is another B60 baggage car for baggage and express, rather than mail. It is a prototypical Hellgate model. The next car in the train calls for a coach-baggage PB70, but the model also has a 15’ RPO compartment. The car is an MPB70 prototypical to the Pennsylvania (but not necessarily to the Admiral) and is a repainted Model Power car. Next is an old heavyweight P70 coach. It has been repainted in the 3-stripe scheme, but passengers must suffer because it has no air conditioning. Next is a series of P85 coaches (actually P85bR). These cars were unique to the Pennsylvania and were built by the railroad in 1947. With 44 seats, it was roomy and had reclining seats (hence the R in the designation) and large washrooms at the ends. 94 were built, 24 from American Car & Foundry and 70 assembled from ACF kits at the PRR's Altoona shops. The P85bR’s were used mostly on long distance trains like the Jefferson and the Admiral.

 

More P85 coaches and a diner

 

I’m not sure if a heavy or light-weight diner was more typical on the Admiral, but the model is a heavyweight Microtrains model in post-war pinstripes.

 

Pullman sleeper section

 

 

After the diner is the lounge car. The prototype consist had Spruce Falls or Maple Falls. I don’t have a lounge in the Falls series, so I substitute Harbor Cove (lounge with 5 double bedrooms) from Kato’s Broadway Limited set. The first of three sleeper cars was a 21 roomette. The Admirals used Sewicky Inn or Sharon Inn, but my only Inn car is Ravenna Inn from Kato’s Broadway set. The next sleeper was a 6 section-6 double bedroom heavyweight car. My substitution is the 10 section-1 drawing room-2 compartment car Villa Royal, a Microtrains car. The last car is a prototypical 12-1 heavyweight car named John Greenleaf Whittier, another Microtrains car. Many PRR trains used 12-1’s named after famous people on the rear of the train (that were not used elsewhere in the train), perhaps because these 12-1 cars were always fitted with drumheads and markers on the rear. Pennsylvania owned these two heavyweight cars, but by this time they left Pullman ownership and had 3 pinstripes added, even though they were staffed by Pullman porters.

 

 

References

http://kc.pennsyrr.com/passops/hbg_092854.php

Welsh, Joe, Pennsy Streamliners, Kalmbach Books, 1999.

Welsh, Joe, Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited, MBI Books, 2006.

 

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