A Remarkable Transformation

A Remarkable Transformation

by Art Peterson

All photos from the Krambles-Peterson Archive

In 1903, Barney & Smith (B&S) delivered a pair of 44-foot-long parlor-buffet cars, "A" and "B," to the Dayton & Western (D&W), to be used as that road’s contribution to a pool of cars for through Indianapolis-Dayton service, in conjunction with the Indianapolis & Eastern (I&E, later THI&E).

The schedule for the “Interstate Limited” in the era when D&W “A” and “B” were part of the pool called for them and the Indiana-provided cars to cover the 109 miles between Indianapolis and Dayton in 4 hours, 15 minutes, equating to an average speed of 25.6 mph.

But consider this in the context of the competition in that era – driving was frequently an adventure. A typical trip of 110 miles by auto in this era could easily take as much as 6.5 hours, meaning you averaged less than 17 mph on the best of days. And that’s assuming you didn’t have a blow-out or get stuck along the way – any sort of inclement weather would throw that travel time into a cocked hat.

Parlor seating accommodated 24 passengers, and a small buffet area for preparation of light refreshments was included.  They rode on B&S rigid-frame trucks and were equipped with Westinghouse 56 motors.  Clearance issues (raising a railroad bridge in Richmond and increasing the track center spacing in Dayton to accommodate the I&E cars) caused a slight delay to the start-up of the “Interstate Limited” service.  This service lasted only until 1906, by which time THI&E was taking delivery of its larger, faster Cincinnati-built combines.

Limited service resumed in 1907, using only the big THI&E cars.  Simultaneous with this, the D&W had come under the control of the Ohio Electric (OE).  OE rebuilt the parlor-buffets into coaches 282-283.  As part of the rebuild, the hard-riding B&S rigid trucks were replaced with conventional Peckham trucks.

The former parlor-buffet “A” is shown during its OE days as coach 282 at the former D&W West Alexandria shops and yard. The 54-mile Dayton to Union City line was where OE typically used the dozen shorter B&S cars it acquired on leasing the D&W from 1907. Although not apparent from this angle, Dr. Reed Prugh noted the two former parlors stood out, having retained their unique individual arched side windows.

As of May 1911, OE was operating hourly service between 6 am and 9 pm between Dayton and Union City. The 11 pm trip out of Dayton ran as far as Greenville (41 miles) where it was laid up for the night.

Despite being the largest interurban in Ohio (operating a 617-mile network, including several city operations), OE was never financially well off. No dividends were ever paid out, and the 1913 floods deeply affected the big system. Tight fare regulation and increasing highway competition meant real trouble for OE, which went bankrupt in 1921. OE’s break-up actually occurred over several years, depending on the various lease terms or other ways in which its component carriers had been acquired.

D&W was returned to the control of its builders/owners, the Winters family of Dayton. The OE’s ongoing financial travails had not been kind to the former D&W rolling stock, leading Valentine Winters, president of the D&W (as well as being Jonathan Winters’ grandfather), to decide on a rebuilding program for the D&W’s mainline rolling stock. In the case of cars 282 and 283, their transformation into D&W 611 and 613 was nothing short of remarkable.

The heavy lifting for the 1921 rebuilding was handled by B&S, of which Valentine Winters was the receiver. Around this same time, Mr. Winters also arranged to secure a contract for B&S to build eight new passenger cars for the Dayton & Troy (D&T), which had lost all its equipment in an April 1920 fire at its Tipp City barn. The D&T cars were the last new cars B&S would deliver, after which the old-line carbuilding firm closed its doors.

Wilbourne Cox posed the rebuilt 611 on Brown Street, outside the Oakwood Street Railway (OSRy) shops, which finished the rebuild work on the D&W cars. As it happens, another of the first families of Dayton, the Cleggs, owned both the OSRy and the D&T.  

Design of the work to be done on D&W 611 and 613 was managed by Henry Gebhart, the General Manager of the OSRy. As you can see in the broadside view, the cars were substantially lengthened in the rebuild, with 18’5” added to them. Standard C80P trucks were put under the cars, which now had steel underframes. The various parties involved all managed to take the old B&S “shorties” and turn them into a handsome pair of cars.

Once the rebuilt cars entered service, D&W moved to aggressively schedule the limited trains in conjunction with what THI&E was doing on the west end of the through route. An August 1923 D&W schedule in the “Central States Guide” shows that the hot trains on the road carried 200-series train numbers and required 3 hours, 55 minutes to cover the 109 miles from Dayton to Indianapolis. This schedule would remain in place for nearly a decade.

As it happens, around the same time of the publication of that “Central States Guide,” paving of US 40 – the National Highway – was essentially completed from Washington, DC, all the way to St. Louis. While other area roads were still “improved” or perhaps gravel surfaces, the competitive challenge to the THI&E and the D&W was considerable.

Wilbourne’s photography of the rebuilt D&W cars was not limited to the east end of the interstate run. Here, circa 1927, the crew and the 611 pose at the Indianapolis Traction Terminal. Ongoing upkeep of the cars by D&W shop forces was generally top-notch. The dented dash in this photo of the 611 was definitely the exception.  

D&W’s bankruptcy in 1931 resulted in two significant occurrences. The road defaulted on its equipment trust (exceptionally, this occurred well before abandonment), leading to seizure of the bulk of the D&W 600-series motors (including the two former parlor-buffets) by Cincinnati Car Company. The car company advertised the cars for sale, but there were no takers.

The other occurrence was that, given the importance of the D&W to both the Indiana and Ohio interurban networks, the Cincinnati & Lake Erie (C&LE) began a five-year period where it supervised the operation of the D&W. This transition was also accompanied by the acquisition of a group of the former Cleveland Southwestern “curved-side” cars for use on the D&W mainline. Those cars and how the service fared during the period they were in use are a story for another time.

Acknowledgements: Tom Morrow deserves special mention for his patience with the author’s numerous questions, as well as for having provided a copy of the November 1982 “Traction & Models” article by Dr. Prugh. Files saved by George Krambles and Willis McCaleb were also extensively referred to, as was the 1960 book “The Electric Interurban Railways in America,” by Hilton and Due. In addition, Tom Hoback and Carlos Schwantes provided significant insight into the competitive environment the D&W faced.