A heavyweight C&O business car is to be auctioned off at a failed Michigan tourist attraction on May 30-31. According to a news article posted on a railfan bulletin board, the former "Stagecoach Stop" in Michigan's Irish Hills will auction a load of antiques, including a modernized heavyweight office car advertised as having been used by President Eisenhower. (If I remember correctly, it may have been the C&O Historical Society that researched the car and established that Ike never set foot in it.)

This car did not look too bad when I saw it about 10 years ago. It is by the side of the road near Cambridge Junction, Michigan, at 7203 US-12, about 20 miles southeast of Jackson. Probably solid bearings.

Aarne Frobom
Home Front, Michigan

Detailed pictures of the car are seen here near the bottom of the page

http://picasaweb.google.com/denisekinsey1/StagecoachStop?feat=directlink#

What kind of bearings are these?
http://picasaweb.google.com/denisekinse ... 8362232226

Those are Hyatt roller bearings.

What chance would that unit have of becoming an Amtrak-certified PV?

For that matter, what chance would it have of being transportable by rail in the current climate?

It depends how deep your pocket book is if you want have the car meet Amtrak specs? Really with out seeing the car in person you probably could easily spend $500K making it meet the specs for Amtrak.

As for moving the car in freight service it just depends on who the orignating and recieving carrier is. As long as their is nothing mechanical wrong with the car itself such as trucks, couplers, and a new COT&S it should not be a problem. Now if there are structual issues/problems with the car then it can pose as a problem.

Chris Edwards
Batavia & Ohio Railway Services, LLC.

What railroad is it currently located on, or near? Didn't we just have a report that the old oil bath non-rotating axle cap roller bearings are no longer welcome on CSX?

Not sure what RR is close to this cars current location. It was trucked in. I was investigating buying this car when Ozark had it on their site. The car is land locked, and the photos that are provided on this post do not show the all of the side sheet problems at the sill and belt rail. Besides all that it would take to move this car and get it railworthy, the owners were asking 90K for it when it was listed. Nice interior, but not 90K's worth. And Ike never had any association with this car. Fictious rumor to make it a tourist destination. If you want the pics that Ozark had up I can send.
Rob

This car isn't really that close to any RR. It would have to be trucked 20 miles or so. Probably the closest friendly RR would be the GLC in the Walled Lake area. The area has a trucker with experience moving railcars such as cabooses but I don't know if he has experience moving passenger cars or not.

The interior of the car isn't bad when I last saw it.

Chris.

As far as I know there has not been anything official from CSX banning older oil bath non-rotating axle cap roller bearings. The problem that is occuring you have people doing these inspections from CSX that really have no expeiernce with passenger equipment. So they know the AAR rules and regs concerning freight equipment, and thus they are applying those rules concerning passenger equipment.

I know this thread came up a while back on the froum. What got all this started was some one had a car that was moved that had oil bathed rolling bearings and supposedly the wrong type of oil was used and the car burnt up the bearings up on line of road. After that CSX started looking more closely at passenger equipment that had the non-rotating end caps. Pretty much it is coming down to a case by case situation with different cars on moving them across CSX from what I have heard.

Walled Lake is 40 miles away.

Nearest railhead that's live, friendly and *safe* is Lenawee Junction, 20 miles away. Adrian doesn't cut it, too much vandalism. The Junction connects the Adrian & Blissfield Rail Road with the live tracks of the Southern Michigan Railroad Society, so either one would be an option for storage. A&B interchanges with I&O and NS.

I don't know what constitutes an "official" announcement from CSX, but they are refusing to move passenger cars with non-rotating end-cap bearings.

Chris.

Here is a sampling of the results of this sale. Car sold for a decent price, less than I would have expected, but good considering it is landlocked and has an intact interior.
Rob
http://www.nortonauctioneers.com/results.htm

Interesting. $17,000 seems like it will be less than the cost of moving it. Hopefully the owner is capable, and just got himself a real bargain. I would hate to think that someone got just got in over their head.

So what ever happened to this?