Southern Utah McKeen Car Being Restored

Don Strack · **Posted:** Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:12 am

According to this newspaper article from September 11th, the two halves of the Southern Utah RR McKeen car no. 100 were loaded on two trucks on September 9th and moved to Carson City, Nevada, for restoration and display in Minden.

http://www.sunad.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=32081

Is there more to this story?

More about the car is here:

http://www.utahrails.net/utahrails/surr-mckeen.php

Don Strack

solar1953 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:30 pm **Posts:** 56

This is absolutely amazing!! I was under the impression that the McKeen car at the Nevada Railroad Museum was the only surviving example. Makes one wonder just how many more treasures are out there waiting to be re-discovered?

Charlie · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:04 am

Gee whiz, if the employee recognized the historical nature of the car, couldn't he have moved it without cutting it in half? Wonder how hard it'll be to glue it back together? But at least it's still around and we have him to thank for it.

Trolleyguy · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:05 am

It appears that the car was cut in two in order to be removed from the site. At least it was preserved.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:04 am

Reposting well-buried photos from the sites listed above:

(from UPRR collection)

From Edmund Keilty's Interurbans Without Wires.

Note the quite unusual details, including a combined cowcatcher and radiator(!) and the funky three-axle motor truck with different-diameter wheels.

Dennis Storzek · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:08 am

Charlie wrote:

Gee whiz, if the employee recognized the historical nature of the car, couldn't he have moved it without cutting it in half? Wonder how hard it'll be to glue it back together? But at least it's still around and we have him to thank for it.

Like lots of these projects undertaken by individuals, if it's going to cost a lot of money, it isn't going to happen. Sounds like the move was made in 1991 on the lowboy equipment trailer the guy had for his farm equipment, so his actual out-of-pocket expense was $0, other than what he paid for the car. To move it intact would have required hiring a special truck (long low deck trailers not being that common), over-size load permits, etc.

I happen to know of a Soo Line caboose that was moved in one piece on a farmers trailer, for exactly the same reason. No permits, no nuttin'. Bet that load was overweight on axle!

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:18 am

Charlie wrote:

Gee whiz, if the employee recognized the historical nature of the car, couldn't he have moved it without cutting it in half? Wonder how hard it'll be to glue it back together? But at least it's still around and we have him to thank for it.

Here's a photo from a different 2012 article showing the car as preserved in Price:
http://www.sunad.com/index.php?tier=3&a ... media_id=2

The article itself: http://www.sunad.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=26041

From photo caption (corrected):

Quote:

The McKeen Car, once the pride of the Southern Utah Railroad , now sits in a field owned by Marion Hamaker in south Price. The car was cut in two and is used for storage. It was reportedly offered to various museums before it was moved from Helper about 20 years ago, but those contacted did not want it or could not handle its size and/or moving it.

Don Strack · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:33 am

Here are the photo and drawing that ADMIV linked to, which may or may not display on everyone's system.

http://www.utahrails.net/images/sou-ut-mckeen.jpg

http://www.utahrails.net/images/sou-ut- ... rawing.jpg

Don Strack

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:49 am

donstrack wrote:

Here are the photo and drawing that ADMIV tried to link to.

"Tried to"?? They show up fine in my views. Are they not appearing on others' accounts/monitors/whatever?

Hmmmmm. Works fine in Firefox, have to be forced open and reloaded in Chrome.......

Don Strack · **Posted:** Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:13 pm

So, apparently phpBB displays differently on different systems/browsers.

But Attachments work, and so do URLs to JPG images, but not the funky URLs that SmugMug offers. I guess with phpBB, you get what you pay for, i.e. $0.

This is how it shows on my Win 7, with Firefox 32.

Nice to know...

Don Strack

Charlie · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:23 am

Quote:

The McKeen Car, once the pride of the Southern Utah Railroad , now sits in a field owned by Marion Hamaker in south Price. The car was cut in two and is used for storage. It was reportedly offered to various museums before it was moved from Helper about 20 years ago, but those contacted did not want it or could not handle its size and/or moving it.

[/quote]

Ah, I apologize for criticizing the owner for cutting it in two. Sounds like it would've been scrapped if he didn't take it so kudos to him for rescuing it.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Sat Oct 04, 2014 11:46 am

Charlie wrote:

Ah, I apologize for criticizing the owner for cutting it in two. Sounds like it would've been scrapped if he didn't take it so kudos to him for rescuing it.

A relative of mine out West saw the photo and said "It looks like he wanted to make two fancy horse trailers out of it!"