By William “Skip” Deegans
The town of Alderson has the unique designation of having two railroad cars named after it. The first was in 1907 when the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) named a new Pullman palace car after the town. It ran between Cincinnati and New York and was described as being “…upholstered in green plush, has blue carpet and is trimmed in sky-blue.”
In 1951, the C&O named a new Pullman the “City of Alderson.” An estimated 2,500-3,000 people turned out when the car was dedicated in Alderson by C. A. Taylor, C&O’s vice-president and general manager. The ceremony began when Charles L. Lobban blew the accompanying engine’s whistle, and the Alderson High School band played a railroad song. The car was christened by Mrs. Alex R. Thompson, West Virginia’s mother of the year, and WRON aired the event.
The car had six double bedrooms and ten roomettes for individual occupancy. It was, however, short-lived in the C&O fleet. The railroad had overestimated the number of new cars it needed and had to sell some of them. The City of Alderson car became part of the Atlantic Coast Line and later the Seaboard Coast Line. From there it became part of Amtrak’s Auto Train that transported snowbirds’ autos and passengers to Florida.
When it was retired from the Auto Train, it was purchased by Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey in 1976 and became part of the 15-car Monte Carlo Express. What happened after its life as a circus car is unclear. The Ringling Brothers circus shut down in 2017. Some of the cars were sold, donated, scrapped or re-purposed. The North Carolina Department of Transportation bought some of the cars for a proposed scenic railroad, but a fire in 2022 destroyed most of them. Two cars were reported sold. Is the City of Alderson Pullman out there somewhere?
Sources: Greenbrier Independent, The Raleigh Register, The Leader, The News Observer, The Aldersonian, Fritz Milhaupt.
