If enough of the frame survived it should be possible to identify it, and the ends may have stamp marks on them somewhere. The history detectives idea is ok, but they are not necessarily railroad wizards, so we all have a headstart there !!

Ps the wife says NO to another railroad car, she is already competing with one 'other' woman !

Mike car 57
cheyenne

This web site has photos of the car, and what survived:

http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln51.html

I would like to point out "The rest of the car is a reproduction made of 2x4's,"

Its basically a shed that's shaped like a coach sitting on freight car trucks. The ad clearly states that "This car can NOT be used as an actual passenger car, it is not constructed to withstand the forces of being pulled by a locomotive and only acceptable for stationary use."

Its not a car at all. Its a shed sitting on a "set of FRISCO freight car trucks."

The ad is bassically for a set of FRISCO Freight Car trucks, and a shed. If any one needs freight car trucks, here's your chance.

Just look at the interior construction of the thing!

While the ends seem to have come off a real car, do they have any resemblance to the ends on the Lincoln car?

The roof looks reasonably original in places ?? anymore interior shots ?

Mike

Slightly off-topic -but certainly interesting...here's the timetable for the funeral train. (From the Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?co ... p,mgw,nfor

Stephen -

Interesting! This is the timetable for the Chicago to Springfield portion of the funeral train over the Chicago & Alton Railroad. I wonder if there are any timetables for the earlier segments?

Les

Below is an email I just received from probably as good a Funeral Train researcher that exists:

"Hi, Matt

For more than ten years I was the director of the Lincoln Train Project at Benedictine University. I’ve done extensive research on the car as we created a traveling exhibit about the funeral train. Our exhibit is on display in Springfield Illinois right now. I wrote an article for Model Railroader (Feb. 1995) which includes drawings and photos. I’ve since retired and moved to Arizona where I continue to teach at the University of Arizona.

Getting right to the point: The president’s car was constructed by the US Military RR system in the shops of the Orange and Alexandria RR. Completed just days before Mr. Lincoln’s death it had only one government use and that was his funeral train from Washington to Springfield IL. Returned to Washington, it was a burden on the government. Montgomery Meigs, the Quarter Master General said, “ The Government doesn’t own a single foot of rail, what do we need a private car for?” It was sold at auction to the Union Pacific RR and used in the West…finally downgraded to a track workers car. Franklyn Snow then purchased the car and displayed it at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. He tried to take it around the Midwest on a promotional tour, but went broke. Thomas Lowery of Minnesota purchased, refurbished and displayed the car in an area called Columbia Heights north of the Twin Cities. In 1911 a grass fire consumed blocks of the area and badly burned the car. It was declared a total loss and scrapped. Local citizens were invited to come take souvenirs before it was demolished. I have numerous newspapers, photos and personal accounts to document all of this.

The car you may be looking at was used as a bridge for a youth camp as I remember in MO. Someone sent a number of photos to me a few years ago. It’s just not the President’s car. Maybe it was somehow connected to the funeral train, but I’ve found no evidence of any cars from the train except one from the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore RR that was the “officers’ car.”

What kind of provenance is the seller providing? The photos of the car show some similarities. The original had a “monitor” roof which might have been removed. See the photo below.

My wife and I wrote a nice booklet on the car history and model exhibit that we produced called “The Lincoln Train is Coming.” See attached. Wayne Wesolowski 5961 W. Bridle Way, Tucson AZ 85743..We sell many of our books at Lincoln sites and re-enactments. I dress as one of the Pall Bearers – a member of the Veterans Reserve Corps.

I really wish the original car had not been destroyed, but that is not the case. In my research I’ve found dozens and dozens of pieces of furniture, souvenirs, beds, desks and even a water closet and commode that supposedly came from the car. Very, very few could be authenticated.

Your project on the Lawndale car is wonderful. I’m so glad you documented everything including the positions of the nails. What an accomplishment!!. I wish it were a Civil War era car as so little is known about the construction and even the paint colors. I had one heck of time determining the color of the Lincoln Car. The folks at the California State RR Museum were of great help to me.

Regards,
Wayne Wesolowski, PhD
Director Lincoln Train Project
Benedictine University (ret)
Lecturer in Chemistry
University of Arizona"

Has it occurred to anyone that the Car for sale has about Four extra windows than what the photographs of the Lincoln car had ?

Remember, its not a car, just a shed on frieght car trucks, made from 2 x 4s.

From that last photo, the interior looks like old construction and the boards running the full length on the floor also look like old railroad construction. It looks to have the metal strapping on the underside as well (I do not know the proper term for this support system). Having seen the aftermath of many fires, I would hazard a guess that this car never saw fire. Since fire burns up, the roof would show the most damage with the floor showing the least. True, burnt wood can be sanded down to good wood if the charring doesn't go too deep.

So in my opinion, what you have here is the remnants of an old passenger car that was rebuilt with current dimensional lumber to look like an old passenger car. The different number of windows is due to the additional length of this car. The rebuilder used a window of the same dimensions as the original and since the car is longer, wound up with more windows than the original. And the old car may very well have sat on the ground or cribbing or something other than trucks and to add to the authenticity, someone put it on a set of trucks that were readily available, hence the freight trucks as someone pointed out earlier. Hard facts win out over legend every time!

Later!
Mr. Ed

Dr. Wesolowski has done probably the most extensive research ever on the car in conjunction with his superb model, plans of which appeared in February 1995 Model Railroader, so I defer to him. As has been mentioned, this "car" appears to be little more than a grafting of two antique rail car ends onto a constructed semblance of a coach. Comparing photos of the car ends with a shot from the Library of Congress of the real Presidential Car "United States" taken in 1865 front of the Alexandria Car Shop of the U.S. Military RRs, there is a passing resemblance to the car, but certain crucial details are different:



The section above the end windows does not have the recessed panels as the original car, nor does the roof line match. The original car end wall had a flat top while this one appears to have a curved, arched top.
Interesting, though, the reconstructed interior roofline seems to have curved arch braces that appear to be old, and bear a remarkable resemblance to similar features in Pullman and Wagner Palace cars of the 1870s era. Perhaps the ancestry of these items is from a car such as these.

Definitely not the same car.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were remnants of several cars here, at least three: a freight car donating trucks and perhaps some underframe components (notice no underside pictures), a passenger car of longer then Lincoln car length donating ends and maybe roof framing, and whatever was grafted in between as third or more - the top to bottom B&B siding is a giveaway.

I'm reminded of the Stuhr Museum dropping entire old carbodies on industrial flats to make passenger cars.

The truss rods don't seem to be complete or doing much for the carframe above the sills - I see no sign of diagonal bracing or even tension rods in the wall framing visible in the photos.

So, we have an anecdotal report of a carbody used as a bridge at a youth camp - flatcars are frequently recycled as bridges, but it doesn't boggle the mind to consider that a passenger car body could be used for a similar thing for foot traffic only. Many very obsolete wooden passenger cars were recycled as sheds, work train cars, etc, so the ends and roof framing elements which appear old could have come from any number of sources common in the WWII era - heavyweight steel cars didn't push out wooden cars from work train service until lightweight streamliners pushed them from passenger service after all. Lots of old wooden MOW cars doomed in the Eisenhower era, for example, to strip for parts, just about the same time as the ones used since the 1920's for sheds and chicken coops were about to rot away.

My guess is that somebody back a few decades ago - perhaps about the centennial of Lincoln's assasination - decided to create a replica of the funeral car with whatever he could get most readily to hand, without taking too many pains about accuracy. Since then, probably several people have done their share of patching expeditiously, perhaps without any idea of a Lincoln connection.

If we only knew the story, it might be an interesting bit of history of note in and of itself.

dave

I also recall the large scale model, but can't recall where.

It MAY have been in Gettysburg. I'm not certain. B&O Museum also sounds like a good possibility. As mentioned, I seem to recall a 4 truck arrangement.

However, I may be confusing that with the place that had a simulated train ride on the Lincoln train. No, not the Gettysburg RR, this was an indoor theater with a simulated coach and they played some sort of a movie. Kind of like the 1800's version of those "rocket ship to the moon" rides at carnivals. I don't think I ever actually went on the ride, it was too cheesy to waste the money.

Apparently the Lincoln Train Museum still exists in Gettysburg.

http://www.wegoplaces.com/Attraction_138067.aspx

No mention of the large scale replica though...

I think this listing by Ozark Mountain Railcar is fun. He was upfront about what the "car" is and isn't. It is clearly posted and maybe of you don't know how to use a computer or if you click around without reading what the website says...maybe then this would confuse you. Otherwise the question about authenticity is clear as day.

What is John to do? Somebody calls him and wants him to help sell a relic...what does he do? I think he has done the right thing. And why are some so ready to believe the little written history of the car yet the old photo is right there and clearly shows "parts" (more then a coupling link) sticking up from behind the fence. Wooden parts could easily have been rescued from that heap...easily.

I think the car ends being real is very plausible. And who is going to get hurt? If somebody wants to spend $6000 on that relic for their civil war collection...let them!

I hope John gives us a progress report and lets us know when he sells it and what the buyer thought about the relic. This feedback would be interesting.

People promote museum trains and claim they are scenic...when they aren't. It happens every day.

Termite7