The name "Camp Grant" brings back family memories. My father was discharged at Camp Grant in November, 1945.

That sister car, sitting off its trucks, was long a resident on the East Side of Bozeman Pass, visible from I-90. It has migrated to Harlowton and is displayed in front of the former Milwaukee Road depot there. I will post a Facebook link (Sorry): https://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeRRMus ... ns&__xts__[0]=68.ARAEPcjlpTNDW_LF_k8U2I0txNiHKoFyvk-wakbsvcesnzvg9aUMgi_-8SwRCCyud0RmRjzPOYvrLrdvqgK9GObMdxUvT4sR4KojiyhEbUXXsuxkE831nfaKTfIlKTQKdrabc4ZDn80A1XaVJXMxyHj_Gb3sGbrN8GYp2w5ITuZ77M7SVWdoQvs6GheS74L6njlFgvn4ZaXESO18-Z4hUuU0dNCS0XWaqeLq8opSTZoWC47HQSyCpRRPITEbVisDyt-tKjgbNXFkIKLVPdccF1mGqchFTxr5q9SbrcBumOPcNsIS_tVIQUvlyME6VlcV8lQStZP6v2U1fPCEYjtAABuw9L3uoZykcn1U_BjM9arMdWQfoy6k3DaTCfz3akSIZjmtw5iisJbjiQJ9QOYFDeWla7aZ7iIFO_Gdi2MOHxhbweI_B-MJT5zQNIy_HYFvPAA-l-GduoodYA

This is the former Camp Riley?

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

To answer the post above: this does appear to be the car that was on the ranch for many years, in view of the Montana Rail Link line. A good save by the museum of a rare item.

Reminiscing on the Camp Grant: this car was supposedly on the last train over the MILW western extension before it was abandoned. I don't know if that is true or not.

The Camp Grant was purchased in the mid-1980s by a member of the Bluewater Michigan Chapter NRHS, with vague plans to restore it to restoration and use by Bluewater. The car then deteriorated for another 15 years in Bluewater's yards in Pontiac and Saginaw, to the point where it was falling apart. IRM agreed to take it in a donation. About 1999 it departed for Union. I think other groups looked at the car, but it was ultimately scrapped as it was not repairable. The car was already in poor shape when acquired in the 1980s, and was a hodge-podge of different construction methods and rebuilds.

Chris.

Brian and others,
Is not the heavyweight Lake City at IRM a Pullman sleeper built for the Milwaukee Road?

It was beautifully restored by a private owner before arriving at Union?

I remember an article about it in Rail & Wire several years ago.

Ted Miles, IRM Member

The Harlowtown was rebuilt by The Milwaukee Shops from a Pullman sleeper, then to Camp Grant, then again to Terre Haute, finally as MOW car X-830. She had a kitchen, dining room and Solarium lounge.
As a MOW car most of the kitchen and walls were torn out. Two oil fired caboose stove stacks were cut through the beautiful inlaid ceilings and the interior was sprayed over with white paint.

The Coast out in Montana is the last survivor from this set. I believe at least 4 were built for The Olympian and it also was saved by becoming a MOW car. If they are lucky there is still some Zebra and other exotic wood veneer under that white paint.
Lost it's original name but it became Camp Randal. then Coast, finally retired as work car X-420.

We (The IRM) did save some of the Camp Grant's wall panels that had not been either destroyed by water or fire.

When I saw the Coast 38 years ago (1982 at the White Sulphur Springs and Yellowstone Park Railroad in White Sulphur Spring MT) the Solarium still had the wood paneling intact and not painted over. Most of the rest of the car was white and the kitchette area was painted in yellow. I have no idea how the car has fared in the intervening years. Dry weather and relative isolation in the post Milwaukee era has probably done much to preserve the car.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

I don't have MILW records to reference, and because these cars were always RR-owned, not Pullman-owned-and-leased, the usual sources of Barger, Wayner, Kratville, and Madden don't have entries for these, but this is what I do have...

There were 7 of these cars built by Pullman in 1915 in Lot #4329 to Plan #2870 with 6 sections and a single compartment, with various names before later being renamed into the Lake-series, and the Lake City now in the IRM collection was apparently Lake Andes for a time (not sure if the other 6 were also renamed twice). Apparently the Lake City is the last survivor from that Lot.

As for the Camp-series cars, again, I have incomplete information, and the only note I will add is that the Camp Randal/Coast now in Harlowton was originally the 12-1 sleeper Madison, from the same Lot and Plan as the Camp Grant/Terre Haute scrapped in 2009 at IRM (which was originally the 12-1 sleeper Harlowton as previously posted).

An additional note should be made that there is an unknown lightweight business car in Madison which is painted in faux-UP/MILW Armour Yellow and named Camp Randall (note the difference in spelling): http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1372077

It should also be noted that the White Sulphur Springs & Yellowstone Park RY had at least 2 other cars; a CN coach, and a NP coach (rebuilt from an excess Pullman heavyweight parlor in the early 1940's).