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Bilevels in the Michigan Woods
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Author:  Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Fri May 19, 2017 7:45 am ]
Post subject:  Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

Short and sweet:

Without divulging too many details lest the vandals go after them, does anyone have further information about a cut of 23 (what sure appear to be) stainless ex-Chicago (Burlington?) bilevels stored on the former Ann Arbor in northern Michigan?

"Preserved"? Car storage on the cheap? Speculative car brokering to future commuter start-ups?

Author:  sousakerry [ Fri May 19, 2017 7:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

HAAHA yeah that is the leftovers from the MI-train debacle. In a nutshell the Great Lakes Central aquired the surplus cars and refitted 23 cars at taxpayer expense then leased them to MDOT for about $1.1M a year to sit idle and do nothing. GLC laughed all the way to the bank and then subleased a couple of cars to the SRI for the 1225 to pull around for coach class.

I think somebody at MDOT watched "Field of Dreams" one too many times and thought "If you lease them the train will come." The state even had an f40 painted up for the demo trains.


http://www.freep.com/story/news/politic ... /22655363/

Author:  Heavenrich [ Fri May 19, 2017 8:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

Two years later this is still very much in the planning phase:

see

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/ind ... dnesd.html

or

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l ... /84639168/

or

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/p ... /28317585/

Bob H

Author:  filmteknik [ Fri May 19, 2017 11:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

Crazy that Metra or WSMTD sold stainless steel cars when they ended up buying back non-stainless cars they sold to VRE. What could be so far gone on a stainless steel box that they could not be rehabbed for another round?

Edit to add:

Were these the original bi-level gallery commuter cars, predating C&NW's?

Author:  Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Fri May 19, 2017 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

The first Burlingtons were built 1950-51 (700-729); the first C&NW cars 1955 (#1-16). But there were later cars in the CB&Q/BN, C&NW, and Rock Island fleets built in the 1960s and 1970s.

Author:  Les Beckman [ Fri May 19, 2017 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:
The first Burlingtons were built 1950-51 (700-729); the first C&NW cars 1955 (#1-16). But there were later cars in the CB&Q/BN, C&NW, and Rock Island fleets built in the 1960s and 1970s.


Quick reminder; both the Burlington 700-729 and the C&NW 1-16, actually ran behind steam power at times when they were first new.

Les

Author:  Peter Nicholson [ Fri May 19, 2017 10:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:
Speculative car brokering to future commuter start-ups?


That was exactly the idea of the people who bought the cars in the first place. The same or another group bought several of the ex-C&NW Pullman-Standard bi-levels for the same purpose. As I recall, after that a whistle was blown because, many Metra cars having been acquired or re-built with Federal funds, it was necessary to first offer them directly to other transit authorities, thereby blowing up the speculators' business model.

Author:  Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Fri May 19, 2017 11:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Bilevels in the Michigan Woods

I'm unaware if the same exact folks are involved in this specific deal as were in the C&NW cars. I know for a fact that several of those cars did get sold or leased to a couple other operations, but, yes, after they bough a bunch of the C&NW and started refurbishing them, *then* the other transit agencies brought up the (valid) point that cars refurbished with FTA funds had to be offered to other transit agencies for a token sum first, which is how some ended up at, for example, Nashville.

The last I heard of the cars with the Chicago-area brokers, they were somewhere along the Lake Michigan lakefront somewhere on the Chicago-Indiana state line, having been relocated from the old EJ&E shops in Joliet. Did those get reclaimed by the transit agencies, are they still floating around, or did they finally get cut up somewhere?

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