In passing through Meridian Mississippi, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes looking over the railroad equipment on the north side of the Amtrak station. I have seen the equipment before in passing coming through on the train.....however never had the time until recently to look up close at the equipment. I am unsure who actually owns the two passenger cars and two cabooses, however one car is labeled with the identification marks of the Queen and Crescent Route NRHS.

The equipment is in deteriorating condition, with the heavyweight ( having L&A trucks, and lettered for the L&N ) being heavily rusted out in its side sheets etc etc. This car is lettered "miss alva", and from my records was built in 1911 as Pullman 16 section tourist sleeper # 4127 named "MONTEITH". The car was later purchased by the Kansas City Southern in 1947 and it became KCS chair car 353, before being removed from the KCS roster in 1963. Records show this car was then again sold to a Mr. Harry Gambert, ( who had also purchased KCS business car Magnolia ) and some other IC equipment. In 1966 the car was leased to a movie company for a movie titled "This property is condemned", with Natilie Wood and Robert Redford and was filmed in Bay St. Louis MS and New Orleans LA. If the story wasn't long enough already, it was then resold and became a cafe on old highway 80 in Meridian, and then again was transferred in ownership to the City of Meridian. How it got back to the depot, and how it has sat for years, and left neglected is why I write.

The lightweight car appears to be an ex Central of Georgia, later Southern steel coach, used on the Nancy Hawks II, and also shows signs of years of outdoor exposure.

Just curious as to who owns this equipment, and why is it totally neglected, with zero effort being put forth to protect or stabilize the cars. Meridian did a fine job constructing the transportation center, however two rusted Pullman cars do nothing more than paint a black eye on the rail preservation community.

Thoughts ? ( should anyone want to see photographs, just send me a message, and I will be more than happy to send them via email. )

It is ashame to see equipment that in theory is preserved, yet in reality, is just sitting neglected, awaiting its date with the scrapper. Perhaps there is more to this story. I am sure its interesting nonetheless.

Dean Levin

Not sure, but its probably owned by the Queen & Cresent Chapter of NRHS. If so, the poor condition is no doubt due to lack of money and volunteers as is suffered by many of our organizations. At least they aren't under the torch somewhere.

Here's a link to their website
http://www.queenandcrescent.org/index.html

Bill

There is a museum of sorts at tne old depot, they had a railfair in Oct.
The cabooses were open to the public, my brother sent me some pictures, I don't know who "owns" them but they are part of the museum.
http://www.meridian-railroad-museum.org/
Googled and heres the link, they are proud of that rusty car, why don't you ask them about it's condtion?

CG 660 is the Southern coach, it is owned by the local NRHS chapter. The KCS car is part of the museum there at the old REA building. I am not sure what the connection between the two organizations is but the mueseum is interesting.

Steve Zuiderveen, Irv White and I had dinner in the L&A Pullman en route to a T.R.A.In. conference back in the early 1980's. It did not look too bad back then, and still had its movie paint job on the outside which, I gather, it still does. There were a few historical items on display inside that told us it had been a 16-section battleship, a pretty rare car, especially considering the L&A cast into the trucks. It looked as though the uppers were still there, but all the lowers had been bulldozed, perhaps during the chair-car conversion.

Now, if someone can only tell me what happened to the 1946 Pere Marquette dining car that we looked for on that trip, that had been converted to a restaurant somewhere near Pigeon Forge, Tennessee . . . We saw everything else imaginable in Pigeon Forge, including Dollywood and a used-car lot specializing in Hudson Metropolitans, but no PM diners.