Conrail 20 Research and Test Car for the Conrail Technical Services Laboratory, rests in Conway Yard in July 1994.

Conrail 20 Research and Test Car - Amtrak 800410

I kindly request that you link to this page instead of sharing these images and stories elsewhere on the internet without permission.

Conrail 20 was built in August 1940 by Pullman-Standard as a 6-double bedroom-lounge car (Lot 6612, Plan 4086-B) for service on the New York Central as Chicopee Falls. New York Central acquired the car on December 31,1945 and numbered it NYC 10597 retaining the name Chicopee Falls (NYC Lot 2226). In July of 1958, the car was renumbered to 10648.

In October of 1958, the car became a parlor-buffet-lounge car numbered 648. It was then converted to a dynamometer/research car in April of 1962 and renumbered NYC X-23417. After the PRR and New York Central merger, it was again renumbered, this time to Penn Central 23417 on February 28, 1968.

Conrail acquired the car on April 1, 1976 and renumbered it to Conrail 20. Conrail 20 was outfitted with special equipment that the Technical Services Laboratory could use to test locomotives and cars throughout the system. The Summer 1982 issue of Inside Track magazine describes CR 20’s purpose: “By far the largest piece of equipment used by the lab is test car CR 20, a former passenger car which has been equipped with a sensitive data acquisition system for over-the-road testing. The car can measure draw bar pull in pounds, cross level of track under load, and fuel efficiency of locomotives.”

Here is a consolidated Conrail 20 history:

Reading & Northern Railroad - (01/25)

Penn Valley Railroad 1954 Chicopee Falls - (2017)

Penn Valley Railroad 1954 Spirit of Sunbury - (6/00)

Norfolk Souther (CR) 20 - (6/1/99)

Conrail 20 - (4/1/76)

Penn Central 23417 - (2/1/68)

New York Central X-23417 - (4/62)

New York Central 648 - (10/58)

New York Central 10648 - (7/58)

New York Central 10597 Chicopee Falls - (12/45)

Pullman Chicopee Falls (08/40)

The car was initially painted Conrail blue with a black roof and underbody. The Technical Services Laboratory logo and name were later added on the blind end. After L. Stanley Crane ordered the special equipment fleet to be painted Conrail Pullman Green in 1983, the car was painted green with gold logos and a special silver alumilastic roof. The alumilastic silver was designed to keep the car cool and sealed from water. Around 1993, CR 20 had the lettering “Research and Test Car, Technical Services Laboratory” added to its sides.

The interior of the car featured large instrumentation racks and chart recorders that took up half of the lounge end of the car. The cabinets were mounted on top of an elevated platform with rubber shock absorbers designed to protect them. A small ramp was visible in the car where the shock isolation pad was. Larry Myers, Technical Services Laboratory manager, remembers that “Every piece of conduit was absolutely loaded. You couldn’t get another wire from one end to the other.” Any additional wiring that was required for testing would have to be run outside the car. A 2-71 Detroit diesel 3-phase generator (originally from a mechanical refrigerator car) was installed inside the first room at the vestibule end to provide power for the car.

Depending on the purpose of the trip, car 20 would host a varying number of riders. A typical day trip could host about eight to ten people, including vendors whose products were being tested. On longer trips that performed ride quality tests across the system, any visitors would typically detrain between terminals, for example between Cleveland and Toledo. The crew, however, would stay with the car, even overnight.

A major difference between the Technical Services Laboratory trips and the Track Measurement Train was that the Conrail 20 rode on revenue freight trains, not a dedicated train. As the trains entered the yards, the locomotive crews changed like normal, but the car 20 crew would stay on board. There was limited time to change test lab crews, so it wasn’t uncommon to be in the car for five to six days. A team of six would rotate their shifts, switching their time between manning the instrumentation and resting.

Conrail 20 even made its way across the U.S. while it was testing the performance of 53’ Schneider containers. Larry remembers a cold February 11, 1992 evening in Chicago attaching strain gauges to the underside of a 53’ container. When Conrail train TVLA pulled into Chicago, the container and car 20 were quickly attached for their trip to Los Angeles via the Santa Fe. As Larry sat in one of the chairs in the lounge near the instrumentation, the train experienced a severe run in, throwing Larry over the back of the lounge chair and into the rear wall. A fellow team member, sleeping in one of the bunks, was thrown onto the floor. When the intermodal train rolled into Los Angeles, the car was met with a showering of rocks thrown by local kids.

Larry provided photographic evidence of what happens when freight train crews subject passenger cars to hard train forces. The series of shots below show the damage that happened to Conrail 20 in 1992.