Penn Central Flexi Van

 Greetings All,

The quest is over! I finally added a Walthers Penn Central Flexi Van spine car with two PC containers to my fleet. As a long time fan of Flexi Vans, COFC and TOFC rail traffic I have been looking for this car for awhile. 

The new car with two containers are assigned to USPS Bulk Mail service. I'll be posting an indepth look at the PC Mail Trains this weekend with plenty of prototype and modeling tidbits for all.

The containers sport the Penn Central heralds and NYCU reporting marks. The Flexi Van spine car, PC 776326, is a Mark III car that was most likely built by Greenville Car Shops for the New York Central in the early 1960s.

Flexi Van Service was the brainchild of the New York Central as a way to recapture traditional Less Than Carload freight traffic with  high speed premium freight trains.

Flex-Van Service on the NYC was very profitable earning 15% of the NYC's revenue with only.05% of it's equipment in 1965.

                                            
The Mark IV Flexi Van spine cars shown at right with the long overhang were built for passenger service and came with steam lines for them to be used on the head end.

The Penn Central utilized their fleet of 400 flexi van cars and 1,450 vans in bulk mail service. Many of these trains were hauled by surplus E units as well as newer power. More on this on Saturday.

Here a few other Penn Central Flexi Van and Mail Train links;

Don't forget Mail 9 was a PC Train too!

As bulk mail hauling declined for the Penn Central an attempt was made to modify at least one car for Trailer on Flat Car service that resulted in an unintended clearance test.

Remember next installment we'll take a closer look at the Transportation of Mail by the Penn Central.

Thanks for reading!!!!

See ya Saturday!!!