I know everybody hates these kinds of threads when they're urgent, but I've mentioned it on here two or three times before, and the rail community of West Michigan has been informed of this pretty heavily (as well as a bunch of other contacts around the country), and the railroad's had this on their website, and the railroad's made efforts to find a home for this thing, but I figured I'd put this out here again as a last chance.

The Coopersville & Marne Railway in Coopersville, MI is currently scheduled to have their horse/baggage car scrapped, probably this Tuesday or Wednesday. If you are interested in preserving this car, or if there are parts you want, please let the railroad know IMMEDIATELY. There is a picture of the car here:

http://www.coopersvilleandmarne.org/Equ ... oster.html

...which is also the website of the railroad, if you want to contact them. As I'm sure is similar for everyone else here in preservation, their budget is tight enough that the money from this would go to great lengths to keep everything else rolling and carrying passengers. As such, requests for a donation of it without compensation will fall on deaf ears. However, if there are parts you want to purchase, or if you want to purchase the entire car, please let the railroad know.

What I can tell you about it is that, in pretty much everyone on the railroad's opinion, the following are shot, missing, or not worth keeping

* Axles (car was dragged down the tracks without brasses after apparently someone stole them)

* Frame (rusted badly)

* Majority of the brake rigging, some of which is being saved for spare parts for other equipment

* Wheels

* With the wheels and axles shot, the friction bearings are having some parts saved but mostly being scrapped

* Floor's shot

* Walls are in bad repair

* Roof used to have a tree growing through the center of the car

* Most brass stolen

* Most small parts also stolen or missing

Phone number is (616) 997-7000. Ask for Jerry if you're interested in buying parts/car that you know it has or Eric if you're wondering if a part is still on it.

*EDIT* Corrected likely scrapping date.

The doomed car should probably be identified as a "horse express" car. To those of us interested in street railways, the term "horse car" brings to mind the Main Street railway at Disneyland or the Douglas Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man.

I agree with the other Bob, I was expecting to find something towed by old Dobbin, wondering where it had been hiding all this time and why anyone would scrap it at such a late date...

For a photo that doesn't really fit the original topic, please go to the Railfan section.

The web site now indicates the car has been scrapped -- but the question that comes up is why and how did it get in such bad shape?

Also, there's a similar car at the museum in Houston, Texas run by the NRHS chapter now there. They use it as a ticket office/souvenir sales car and it's hard to tell its original purpose.

Bob H

Has it been scrapped yet? I know a muesum that would love to have something like this for static display.

In addition to the standard 'parked in the open and left to rot' that seems to happen over and over to rail cars all over, the probability that parts were swapped out to keep other cars going, maybe some vandals, the fact remains that horses pooed and peed in it and my experience tells me that guarantees a short practical life to hauling equipment. You don't see many 20-30 year old livestock trailers that aren't falling apart-how old is this car?

Well, too far away and too far gone for my contacts.


Considering most all of them were relegated to regular baggage service before they were retired, I'd say it was the corrosion and vandals that did her in. Railroads and farm crews tended to keep them very clean.

So, was anything else scrapped out at the C&M when they came out to cut down the C&O horse express car?

As a bit of background on the car, prior to coming to the C&M it had been owned by Glenn Van Winkle, the former owner of Alexander Scale Models. It had spent 20+ years alongside the company's small building at the end of the former C&O/PM Reeds Lake Branch on Cottage Grove Street near Kalamazoo Avenue, in Grand Rapids. It sat there along with a streamlined or betterment GTW coach and a few wooden cabooses of C&O, B&O, GTW and DW&P ancestry.

The passenger cars and at least one of the cabooses were removed from the Cottage Grove site just before CSX removed the Reeds Lake Branch in early 1998.

An ex-C&O caboose from the collection ended up as part of the display with ex-Arkansas RR/Augusta RR 2-6-0 #300 at the "Union Station" warehouse on Hynes Avenue, along US-131 in Grand Rapids. I'm unclear on where the GTW passenger car ended up.

Re: has it been scrapped - I don't know. By today scrapping should already be in progress. I'm not close enough to the scrapping project to tell you the current status. If you're interested, like I mentioned before, call right now.

Re: scrapping of anything else - nothing else was planned to be scrapped and the car was set out by itself so as to be far away from everything else we want to keep. The scrapper is a very well-known, very large, and reputable local place.

Re: how did it get this way - it was placed outside on a storage track in a secured area behind a locked fence with only a few railroad volunteers having keys. When checked on later, the valuable parts to scrap had been removed, and only those that someone with railroad knowledge would have known about. Right around this time, a bunch of tools disappeared from the shop, again with only a few volunteers having keys to it. There are suspicions, but that's as much info as I feel like I can go into in a public forum.

Speaking of horse cars, does anyone up there know what happened to the one in Frankfort, MI?

Update: as of yesterday afternoon, the car has not been scrapped yet. I do not know why. It should have been by now.

Is there anybody around there on weekdays?

Right now, generally only Wednesdays consistently (check the passenger schedule on the website for times). However, if you called and wanted to meet with someone regarding that car, it's possible someone would be able to meet you there at a different time. Best way to find out is to call.