BDE-01

Lehigh Valley Railroad.

The Black Diamond Express,

in 1/29 scale.

The prototype LVRR Black Diamond Express, in the diesel era.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad created its premire passenger train, The Black Diamond Express, in 1896. I have a page about the original 1896 version of the train here:

The Black Diamond Express - 1896.

Steam locomotives powered the train for over half a century, 1896 to 1948, until new Alco PA passenger diesels arrived in the Spring of 1948. The LV bought fourteen new PA's (and no PB's) from Alco, which took over all LV passenger trains from 1948 until the end of passenger service in 1961.

The Alco PA's arrived new in the LV's classic "Cornell Red with three black stripes" scheme, which had been introduced three years earlier with the LV's first road diesels, the EMD FT's of 1945. This scheme would be the one and only scheme the PA's would wear during their lifetimes, and they went to their demise in the mid 1960's still proudly wearing Cornell Red.

The earlier versions of the train often had matching trainsets, starting with the first version in 1896.

Many other railroads bought all new modern train sets to go with their new streamlined diesels, with all the passenger cars "matching" in the sense that they were all built to the same design and style, even though individual cars were of different configurations (baggage, coach, sleeper, diner, etc.) The whole train was intended to be one large streamlined matching unit from the locomotives in the front, to the observation car at the end of the train, such as these classic examples:

Southern Pacific promotional art, artist unknown.

New York Central promotional photo, photographer unknown.

DL&W promotional art, artist unknown.

The Lehigh Valley wasn't so fortunate! The LV did have matching train sets in earlier times, in the late 19th and early 20th centurys, but by 1948 when the diesels arrived, the LV, being ever frugal, (and no longer being flush with cash in a post WWII world) decided to "make do" with older passenger cars it already owned. Most of the cars of the 1948 to 1959 "Alco PA era" Black Diamond express were older cars that were refurbished by the LV's home shops in Sayre, receiving side skirts, interior upgrades, and new paint. This resulted in a very "un-matched" looking train at times! with cars with a mix of roof-lines (most with the older "clerestory" roof, but others with newer more modern rounded roof-lines) and the passenger car bodies were also a mix of styles, some more modern, but most dating from the 1920's "heavyweight" era. But railfans still loved the LV anyway, even if the traveling pubic was underwhelmed. Notice the mix of passenger car types on the LV, when compared to the illustrations above:

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