KITBASHING IN FULL SCALE.

The electric interurban railways might have been the dot.com bubble of the early twentieth century.  Before it popped, though, we saw some splendid examples of the carbuilders' art.  In the days before Federal Express and United Parcel Service, the interurbans offered their own version of fast package service, often with combination cars capable of handling passengers and those packages, which might include milk cans or hatchlings (preferably before they were fed.)

Some of those cars were substantial steel arks unfazed by a few milk cans being put aboard, and impressive enough to shoulder their way through those flivvers and horse-drawn vans where the interurbans shared city streets.

Indianapolis and Southeastern bought those cars from Cincinnati Car Company.  At one time the railroad hoped to run between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, but that never came to pass.  None of those cars survive in any form, although we are aware of similar cars built for Indiana interurbans that are still in preservation.

By the end of the 1920s, a substantial steel car with parcels capacity didn't fit in with the business model. particularly if it required a motorman to operate it and a conductor to collect the few cash fares or tickets from people not yet enticed onto their flivvers.

As an economy measure, you might reconfigure the car in order that the motorman could both run the car and collect the cash fares.  Indiana Railroad mostly gave up on the baggage business.

There are steps on the opposite side, and the larger window that replaces the door on the nearest corner is for the motorman's compartment.  At the far end, the motorman's door forward of the baggage door has been removed.

Another way for the interurbans to reduce expenses was to invest in cheaper, lighter cars that could be operated by one man.  What, then, happens to the heavy cars that are surplus to your requirements?

In the case of Indianapolis and Southeastern, eight of those cars migrated to The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company, where the management were still anticipating increased passenger riding, and they went into Cold Spring Shops as a combination car and emerged as a three-truck train.

The motorman's compartment and baggage area have been rearranged, a new window cut into the body ahead of the paired windows; the original car cut in two pieces in the middle of the fifth pair of windows, with the rear part extensively rearranged, including the placement of the rear truck center closer to the rear of the train.  The middle thirty feet or so of the car, including the double doors, is all new construction.

Those cars provided more than enough capacity during the Depression, although the interurban still found itself short of seats during the War.  But they were not able to make the cars longer, the way the South Shore Line did (there's a story about why those South Shore cars were built so short, for another day) because as modified the cars used all the clearance diagram available.