PV&T class 6P – interurban cars from Pullman

In 1928, as part of the project of switching from locomotive-hauled passenger trains to MU cars, the PV&T made a 200 car order from Pullman for interurban service (replacing all of classes 1P-4P, which then replaced all of the pre-electrification passenger equipment that were being used for commuter service.)

These cars were very successful and held down all the interurban passenger service on the railroad up until the late 1950s, when they were also pushed into commuter service by the class 10P streamliners.

A the end of the 1970s – after Amtrak and VIA took over passenger operations in the United States & Canada – retirements had started to make serious inroads to their ranks, and by 1995 they were gone, aside from cars that went to one railroad museum or another, were converted to MOW vehicles, or had been assigned to the official train.

15 of the 6P’s were delivered as baggage control trailers, and one of them – X122 – is still being used on the official train and painted in D&H colours.

6TS #X113 in a sort-of big sky blue paint scheme

6TC’s X113 & X198 started out as coaches, but were rebuilt into sleeping cars (3 rooms, 4 roomettes, and 2 small bathrooms) during the second world war, and when passenger counts began to evaporate were first used as company sleepers for the Portland to Montréal and Boston to Montréal redeye trains, then went to the official train when those stopped running.

6 of the 6P’s were configured as dining cars; they lasted in service until Amtrak took over passenger operations in the United States, then were scrapped (with the exception of X101, which became the dining car on the official train.)

After the LT&L retired their class DL7 passenger locomotives, they needed something with a steam generator for their (still with steam heat) official train. One of the PV&T’s 6TB baggage motors was in the TdM shops for salvage after a rollover wreck, so it was plucked out of the dead line and instead rebuilt as a heater car with a boiler out of one of those DL7s.

Eventually the LT&L’s official train was made part of the Parsons Vale Trust’s official train, rebuilt into HEP cars, and X100 became redundant. It was not retired, though, because there was still more than a handful of passenger equipment running on various tourist lines in North America, so it is spending its declining years being leased/loaned as those railroads need it.