[N&W] 12-1 Pullmans

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Rick Morrison adds the following comments:

The only 12-1's which were certain to be red were the six cars which N&W
acquired after the breakup of the Pullman Co. in 1948.  These were
Chilhowie,  Galax, Lowry, Sunstar Rose, Vulcan, and Cuttyhunk.
One of these is pictured in Wiley's book.  They were lettered Norfolk and
Western on the letterboard with Pullman sub lettering.  They also had two
stripes on each side like N&W's lightweight cars had.  The big question
seems to be what color  Pullmans assigned to N&W service were prior to
this time period.  Without seeing photographic proof to the contrary  I
would venture to say these cars were Pullman green.  I have some color
postcards published in the 1970's by  Lyman E. Cox.  The were made from
large transparencies from N&W archives.  One in particular of the
Pocahontas made in the early 1940's shows  what appears to be a ten
section Pullman  in green.  Legend has it that the Pennsylvania RR was
the only railroad in the heyday of Pullman service to have the clout to
have Pullmans in tuscan red.  With the advent of streamlining exceptions
to this started to appear.  The special color applied to Pullmans on the
overnight portion of the Tennessean is a good example.   I have seen a
b&w photo of a ten section lounge car assigned to the Pocahontas (until
1953 or 54) with stripes and Pullman spelled out on the letterboard
leading me to believe that the car was red.                   You might
be interested to know that  trains 1&2, the valley trains, were assigned
a 12-1 and a 10 sec.-3 DBR car prior to the arrival of the 10-6 cars.
The 12-1 was then dropped but the 10-3 continued to run until about
1953-4.  Pictures I have seen of the train show these cars in various two
tone color schemes, but since the pics are b&w it's hard to tell what
colors they are.  It wasn't unusual to see other cars substituting such
as 8 sec.- 5 DBR.

           Rick Morrison