Have no idea how this might (or might not) affect Mr. Jacobson's steam efforts, but earlier this year he and his wife Laura donated $10.1 million to the Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. This is the largest cash contribution the school has ever received.

http://www.admissionsquest.com/onboardi ... /donations

Jim Tatum.

Somebody has to defend his new roundhouse. ;)

Mr. Jacobsen, for half that amount, I will defend your new roundhouse.

According to media reports, he received $219,000,000 for the Ohio Central Railroad. So he has the money to spend.

To his credit, I noticed that several of the coaches he leased to the FWRHS for their trips last weekend had new paint jobs, and all of them had excellent a/c. Not bad for cars he hasn't had any reason to use for 5 or so years now.

Chris.

Of the 9 cars leased from Mr. Jacobson for the runs at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana, two were open window coaches. Supposedly these two were originally in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy commuter service out of Chicago and might well have run during the season of Burlington fantrips behind 2-8-2 #4960, 4-8-4 #5632 and various other Q steamers. Just wondered if anyone might have the original CB&Q numbers of these two cars? Thanks.

Les

Chris,

The Cuyahoga Valley used these cars recently on their Polar Express trips (although obviously without any A/C), and a few were used for an excursion for the Ohio State Rail Tourism convention.

KL

Could these have possibly been two of the three "Q" coaches that were IRM during the seventies? These were intercity coaches in the 6100 series that had been bumped to commuter service late in their lives. They came to us with sealed windows and a/c; the added outer glazing was removed at the museum to allow the windows to be opened. They would be similar in appearance to this car currently at IRM:

http://www.irm.org/gallery/CBQ6166

It was the sale of these cars in 1975 or so to the start-up Chicago Madison & Northern that prompted IRM to take a serious look at the terms of some of the "trust agreements" that emcumbered the ownership of some artifacts, a story that I will not go into here. However, no attempt was made to recover these particular cars, the museum deciding to not contest the sale. After they left the property, I've lost track of them, but they were very nice cars. Unfortunately, I also no longer remember the car numbers.

6144, 6148, and 6167. They were nice cars. I remember they had retainer valves for use on long grades -- but we never needed them at IRM. :-)

Of the 9 cars leased from Mr. Jacobson for the runs at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum in North Judson, Indiana, two were open window coaches. Supposedly these two were originally in Chicago, Burlington & Quincy commuter service out of Chicago and might well have run during the season of Burlington fantrips behind 2-8-2 #4960, 4-8-4 #5632 and various other Q steamers. Just wondered if anyone might have the original CB&Q numbers of these two cars? Thanks.

Les[/quote]

It appears that OHCR 704 and 705 were CB&Q 7114 and 7158, respectively. Some notes indicate that they were operated by FWRHS before moving along to the OHCR. 7128 is still listed on the roster at IRM but photos at their website indicate that the car has been "modified" into an open car by torching virtually everything above the window sills.

KRM had a couple of the "Q" suburban cars that were in a BL2 trip that I rode out of Louisville back in the 1970's I could not find a complete roster for KRM so who knows if those cars still exist or if they have moved on.

To answer Les' original question, generally the intercity "Q" heavyweight coaches were used in fantrip service, the six-axle cars not the four-axle suburban cars. This is not to say the one or two of the intercity cars that were "downgraded" to suburban service and even painted in the "Surburbanaire" paint scheme did not make an occasional fantrip. I started riding the trips in late 1962 and don't ever recall seeing one of the 7100 series full coaches in fantrip service. The gallery cars were another story, though.

Don C.

Oh, the "Vista Kallas"....It was the victim of an unfortunate fire of suspicious nature, while stored at "Four Mile" Siding a few years ago.

Instead of taking the sensible route of converting the sad remains into spare parts and saleable scrap metal, Somebody had the "brilliant idea" to turn it into an open car by torching off everything between the vestibules, and above the window sills. So far, in my opinion, it's been a brilliant waste of oxygen, acetylene, grinding wheels, and volunteer labor on a no-longer-historic hulk.

Jeff