Wheels of Time - 395 - Passenger Car, Harriman, Express Baggage - Southern - 317

Specific Item Information: Southern Railway's all steel and baggage car carried sealed mail, LCL express packages and passengers' luggage. They measured 64'-5-3/4" over the buffers and had an end sill length of 61'. They weighed in at 107,600lbs. Southern replaced the original wood doors with aluminum covered doors which were not always painted. Originally built with a clerestory roof. Rebuilt sometime in the late 1940s with an arched roof. It was sub-lettered G.S. & F. for George Southern & Florida, a subsidiary of Southern Railway. Southern Railway consisted of the following companies (as of 1964): Southern Railway; Central of Georgia; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway; Alabama, Great Southern Railroad; New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad; Georgia, Southern & Florida Railway; Caroline and Northwestern Railway; Georgia & Florida Railway.

Model Information: These cars have several different door and roof options depending on which prototypes they are modeling.

Prototype History: These cars were seen on railroads across North America. Harriman cars were developed during the time of Edward Henry Harriman, who controlled the Chicago & Alton Railroad, the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Wells Fargo Express Company, and directed the development of the "Common Standard Specifications" among the Associated Lines. This set of specifications allowed parts to be shared across all Harriman-controlled railroads, allowing economical bid prices due to the sheer size of standardized orders, standardized part inventories and methods for car repair.

These cars were designed with the a distinctive arched roof and diamond underframe crossbearers. The Arched Roof construction handled rainy weather better than clerestoy design - once lighting and ventilation problems were solved. Non-Harriman Arched Roof cars, while similar, had fished-belly underframes developed by Pullman Mfg. Co. and copied by others. Some of these 60-ft cars remained in use until the advent of Amtrak while others became maintenance-of-way cars.

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Road Name History: The Southern Railway (reporting mark SOU) (also known as Southern Railway Company) was a US class 1 railroad that was based in the Southern United States. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.

At the end of 1970 Southern operated 6,026 miles (9,698 km) of railroad, not including its Class I subsidiaries AGS (528 miles or 850 km) CofG (1729 miles) S&A (167 miles) CNOTP (415 miles) GS&F (454 miles) and twelve Class II subsidiaries. That year Southern itself reported 26111 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 110 million passenger-miles; AGS reported 3854 and 11, CofG 3595 and 17, S&A 140 and 0, CNO&TP 4906 and 0.3, and GS&F 1431 and 0.3

The railroad joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in 1982 to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Norfolk Southern Corporation was created in response to the creation of the CSX Corporation (its rail system was later transformed to CSX Transportation in 1986). The Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990 and continued under that name ever since. Seven years later in 1997 the railroad absorbed the Norfolk and Western Railway, ending the Norfolk and Western's existence as an independent railroad.

Brand/Importer Information: Wheels of Time was founded by Matthew Young in the fall of 1995. From an early age, Matthew has had a passion for trains, both in full-size and in miniature. His family frequently went out of their way so he could ride the train, or simply watch the action on the tracks. "On one occasion mom took us to San Francisco along the waterfront. Spotting a State Belt ALCo S-2 locomotive switching the wharves, I persuading my mom to follow it. I watched in wonder as I saw and heard the hit-cup sputtering of the ALCo engine as it revved-up to move railroad cars on and off the car float at Pier 43." Other early family experiences included watching Southern Pacific freight and Amtrak's San Joaquin Amfleet trains roll by as his family waited to be seated at Spenger's in Berkeley, which sat happily right next to the tracks. "My brother and I would shoot pictures of the trains with our Instantmatic 110 cameras, sometimes only getting the wheels or worse yet ... getting a real good close up of my big thumb."

Matthew and his brother built models of all kinds, but their model train career began in elementary school when they started making 3-D cardboard miniature trains from pictures found in the pages of Trains Magazine and Model Railroader Magazine. On a visit, many years later, with the late Richard Buike of Trackside Trains in Burlingame, California, the conversation turned to the lack of N-Scale passenger trains and how the few that existed didn't look right. "I told him right then and there that I was going to produce high quality, historically accurate passenger railroad cars. Even I was a little surprised when I said this." The first product was a 1950 Pullman-Standard "10-6" sleeping car made of brass. Wheels of Time became one of the first makers of historically accurate and realisticly detailed passenger train cars. At Wheels of Time, we research original equipment and recreate it with CAD software for production. We're lovers of history and sticklers for detail. On our line of Transit Motor Coaches (a fancy way of saying "buses"), even the destination *roll* signs are historically accurate. Be sure to check out all our beautiful and accurate products. We hope you'll come to share our passion for trains, here recreated in miniature. At Wheels of Time, you get to take home a piece of a fascinating history.

Wheels of Time manufactures historically accurate model trains, vehicles, and model railroad accessories with a real *wow* factor. Our obsession with detail and historical accuracy is reflected in our exceptional design and production: hold a Wheels of Time model in your hand and you'll be tempted to say, 'It's the real thing!'