NEWS RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT: Don Meyer
Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc.
P.O. Box 358, North Freedom, WI 53951
608/522-4261 or 608/522-4444 until 5:00PM
e-mail: dmeyer@midcontinent.org
http://www.midcontinent.org/news/news17.html


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 9, 2007

100-Year Old Railroad Boxcars Saved by Museum

(North Freedom, Wisconsin) — Two old soldiers of rail transportation
have moved to their new retirement home: Mid-Continent Railway Museum
in
North Freedom. The two boxcars arrived at the museum site aboard three
flatbed trailers on July 19.

The museum’s volunteers had located the ancient old wooden boxcars in

Upper Michigan a few years ago and targeted them for preservation at
the
museum. The cars once served on the Lake Superior & Ishpeming (LS&I)
Railroad which still operates out of Marquette, Michigan hauling iron
ore from mines to Great Lakes ships. The museum already has several
passenger and freight cars and one steam locomotive from the LS&I.

The two cars had been privately owned and stored on an isolated piece
of
track behind the original LS&I depot in Ishpeming, MI for the past 40
years. The smaller and older car (#2011) was built for the Marquette &
South Eastern, a predecessor to the LS&I, by the Pressed Steel Car Co.
in 1901. This 34 foot long, 30 ton capacity box car is the oldest known

LS&I freight car in existence.

The second car (#2026) was acquired second hand by the LS&I (prior to
1926) and the car was built for one of the Pennsylvania Lines around
1910, as a class XL box car. Additional research is planned to uncover
the original car number and built date.

“These cars are truly a rare find and a great acquisition for
Mid-Continent,” according to Bill Buhrmaster, the museum’s
Restorations
Manager. “With these acquisitions, Mid-Continent has the largest (six

pieces) historic collection of preserved LS&I equipment. Once restored,

Mid-Continent will have the capability of displaying either an LS&I
passenger or freight train consist.”

Both cars are intact and in good condition. Restoration work will begin

soon. Incredibly, the cars had still been resting on the home
railroad's
rail, although the tracks were not connected for years. Buhrmaster
observes: “Where else in the country are museums collecting 100+ year

old box cars that are complete?”

The “new” boxcars may be seen at the museum’s grounds in North
Freedom
which are open daily through Labor Day weekend and weekends until late
October. The museum operates a historic train ride, making three trips
a
day. All ticket and gift shop proceeds help support the museum’s many

programs.

From Baraboo, take Highway 136 west five miles to Highway PF and turn
left. Then two miles further to the west side of the village of North
Freedom.

The Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, Inc. is a private,
not-for-profit corporation founded in 1959 to preserve the “Golden
Age”
of railroad history (spanning the years 1880 to 1916) for the upper
Midwest. Membership is open to anyone interested in supporting our
mission.


High-resolution photos for publication may be downloaded from this
link:
http://www.midcontinent.org/press/press_boxcars.html

As one of the captions notes, the cars do look at home at North Freedom, where an impressive number of wooden cars reside.

The frames on t hose cars look an awful lot like the Guignard Brick flatcar we have at SCRM. I'd be very interested in the critical dimensions of those cars' frames, as I've never been able to trace the origin of our car beyond the fact that it is a post 1906 Pressed Steel product.