Aarne,

Do you mean like PRR N6B cabin cars and Pressed Steel Car Co flatcars turned into work train bunk cars?

Steve Zuiderveen

Would this car have been used on the "Soo-Spokane Train-Deluxe"? Isn't that one of the trainsets that Cranbrook is recreating?

TJG

The switcher, the last M&NE NW2, is #3. The shell of it has been preserved, and is under restoration in Kaleva, Michigan at the depot there. Picture below, courtesy Fritz Milhaupt of the Pere Marquette Historical Society:



The group in St. John's (please dismiss my earlier post) also is saving one of the ex-AA cabooses from up there. From my understanding, they ARE looking for trucks, and are SERIOUSLY in need of someone with some expertise on how to do this correctly. And yes, there is supposedly enough money to do this car, last I heard.

The fact that St. John's was a strictly GTW town, well........ya know.........

Beggars can't be choosers right?

TJ Gaffney

No, since the Soo-Spokane-Pacific train was a joint CP / Soo Line operation, and the car at St. Johns is a Duluth South Shore & Atlantic car. So, It spent its life shuttling back and forth between Duluth and Sault Ste. Marie or St. Ignance.

The equipment bought specifically for the Soo-Spokane service was somewhat more modern; purchased in 1907. The Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook, BC has one original car, Soo Line lounge obs. CURZON, and a 1906 Soo sleeper, the OMEMEE, built by B&S in 1906 and thought to be identical to the sleepers built the next year for the joint train. The DSS&A sleeper at St. Johns, even though it is only five years older, has much older styling.

Does anyone here know what their plans are for this car? It could be restored as a passenger car on trucks - or as its use as a building -- the latter of which would allow an interpretation of its connection to NW Michigan and its earlier use as a passenger car.

Or, are they planning to renovate it as offices and display space?

In that case, there are many other cars out there that are in an ideal condition to be converted for such use and would survive better outdoors. I wonder if Mid Continent has ever considered offering them a trade?

In any case, the car MUST be brought indoors at some point if it is to survive over the long term without constant maintenance.

Tom Cornillie

In a posting in this thread someone mentioned that there are not many wood sleepers preserved. The Minnesota Transportation Museum has two that they have saved.
Soo 1227 "Valhalla" built in 1907 by Barney & Smith. The exterior is rough but the interior is about 75% complete.
Soo 693. The history on this car is obscure but MTM reports that it was built in the 1890s. It was converted to work service so the interior is in rough shape now.

Go to MTM's website to read more about these two old woodies www.mtmuseum.org

There is also reportedly Soo 1223 "Vergas" out of the same Barney & Smith order for the Soo sitting somewhere around Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Reportedly this car's interior is more complete than the Valhalla's but the exterior is not good. When MTM approached the owner of the 1223 to see if it was possible to use interior parts to restore the Valhalla, the owner reported that Mid Continent had first dibs on the car.

Undoubtedly there are many more of these old wooden sleepers out there but only a very few have been preserved and none have been restored to my knowledge.

The former Leelanau Transit Co. line, later Pere Marquette and C&O, from Traverse City to the former carferry dock at Northport received a lot of work from an individual in that territory working for owners who wanted to convert it to a tourist line. I got to know this fellow at T.R.A.In. conferences in the 1980's. He dug ties single-handed for years. It could have made a good tourist line, but was turned over to another operator who began running trains but, shall we say, made a few problems for himself. I'm told the owners lost heart, and the entire line was converted to a bike path with donations from the heir to Michigan's Meijer variety-store fortune. That did not sit any better with in-migrant NIMBY's on the peninsula than the railroad did, maybe even worse, but there was no fighting money on that scale, so they now have a fine bike path. A stone depot and PM wood caboose remain as a store at Northport.

- Aarne Frobom