Final Testing Underway - IC City of New Orleans

[rfranzosa]

I am really excited to announce that the Illinois Central City of New Orleans set is undergoing final testing. Should be released sometime this month.

What started out as helping "Kazareh" out with reskinning some of our cars to create a CoNO facsimile (almost exactly five years ago), turned into a somewhat massive set as I learned about the CoNO and its operation, took dozens of photographs at the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Public Library of the Pullman Standard Library volume car diagrams, engineering drawings, etc. covering Illinois Central passenger equipment, and researching actual consists from Robert J Wayner books.

The set includes consists for both Southbound (IC train #1) and Northbound (IC train #2) CoNO sets as they appeared in 1948, 1958 and 1968. Most of these cars were rebuilt heavyweight cars converted to 'streamline' at IC's Burnside shops.

The Set:

#2 from 1948 is the actual consist recorded by Wayner in Memphis, TN September 10, 1948 (note: all cars had names):

IC #4007 - E7A
IC #4101 - E7B
IC #4011 - E7A
IC #403 - RPO and Express car
IC #1903 - Baggage Dormitory
IC #2615 "Dauphine" 56 seat coach
IC #2613 "Clairborne" 48 seat day-night coach
IC #4201 "De Soto" Lunch counter-Lounge
IC #2620 "Maurepas" 56 seat coach
IC #2625 "Ponchatoula" 56 seat coach
IC #2626 "Poydras" 56 seat coach
IC #2622 "Tangipahoa" 56 seat coach
IC #4106 "Jackson Square" Diner
IC #2627 "Plaquemine" 56 seat coach
IC #2614 "Baronne" 56 seat coach
IC #2617 "Feliciana" 56 seat coach
IC #2612 "Carondelet" 48 seat day-night coach
IC #3305 "Mardi Gras" Tavern Lounge Observation

1948 #1
An identical consist with additional names and numbers, hauled by E6A-E7B-E6A set.

1958 #1 & #2
Consists pulled by E8, E9 and E7 locos in the 1950s paint scheme. Cars from the 1948 era had skirting removed and fixed steps added. Car names were removed from all but the Tavern Lounge Observation cars ("Mardi Gras" and "Audubon Park")

1968 #1 & #2
Consists pulled by E8, E9 and E7 locos in the 1960s ICG paint scheme. By this time, even the Tavern Lounge Observation cars had lost their names, but domes purchased from MoPac had been added to the consists

Additional stuff

We've included extra headend equipment and coaches to make up a typical mail and express train. Two streamlined baggage cars (originally build for the City of Miami), HW RPO (pullman green) 2 HW baggage cars (pullman green), 2 HW baggage cars (brown, orange and yellow), 2 HW coaches (pullman green), and a pair of SW7s for terminal switching

The total count for this set is 23 locomotives and 60 passenger cars, split roughly evenly for the three decades of IC passenger trains. Locos and cars from the 1968 era can even be used with 1st gen Amtrak equipment.

OPERATION:

Train #1 left Chicago with 13 cars.
At Carbondale, IL it met up with a feeder train from St. Louis, and one 56 seat coach was taken from the St. Louis-Carbondale train and added behind the diner.
At Fulton, KY it met up with a feeder train from Louisville, and one 56 seat coach was taken from the Louisville-Fulton train and added behind the diner.
This 15 car consist then continued on to New Orleans

Train #2 followed the same pattern in reverse, starting in New Orleans with 15 cars, dropping one coach in Fulton and one coach in Carbondale, arriving in Chicago as a 13 car train.

I'll be posting photos over the next weeks in preparation for the release. I hope you enjoy the set!

Rick

Special thanks to:

Jeremy Hughes (aka Kazareh, aka Komachi) for the original idea
Cincinnati Hamilton County Public Library
Robert Wayner
Matt Maloy (and his Dad) from Elvas Tower for prototype information
Gerry Storey for the OpenRails eng files
www.railfonts.com for some of the fonts used in this set
The Testing Crew:
Stephane Benoit (aka Bennycdn)
Rick Berg
David P Carleton
Ulrich Ehlers
Chris Parker
Tim Spencer
and the man that makes this all possible:
Gaetan Belanger

BLW/ZT/ (C) 2020