Although we often think of preserved rail equipment ending up in railroad museums, it can, on occassion, help tell another story. In Atlanta, Illinois, the good folks decided that, rather than let their old wooden J. H. Hawes grain elevator be used as a trainning exercise for the local fire department, it was worth saving. They renovated it and turned it into a museum. And to help tell the story, they then went out and purchased an old single sheathed Wabash boxcar from ITM, renovated it, and placed it on a short section of track next to the elevator. The boxcar tells its little bit of the story of how grain was shipped in days gone by. Tom Troike took these nice photos of the museum. Atlanta was once served by both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the GM&O. I'm not sure which line served the Hawes elevator.

Les

This exhibit is inducing flashbacks of a similar exhibit--I think it was a smaller mill/warehouse and a boxcar and/or caboose--that I remember seeing in Michigan's Upper Peninsula sometime around my wedding a couple years back (instead of a bachelor party, I was turned loose with a full tank of gas to go railfanning and brewpub-crawling). Looking at the map, I'm thinking Hermansville or Powers? Any ideas?

Two other examples come to mind; the City of Chicamauga, Georgia, has preserved the ruins of a coke oven and has added a couple of open top hoppers to the site to enhance interpretive efforts; and in Kentucky, the Blue Heron mine site (destination of the Big South Fork Scenic excursions) has several hopper cars positioned under the mine tipple.

Alan Maples

The City of New Bedford Massachusetts would need a string of authentic New Haven Railroad boxcars with leaking containers of PCB laden capacitor oil to provide a proper historical interpretive presentation that demonstrates the need to dig up the top ten feet of dirt in the city's railroad yard and have it incinerated.

PC

Anybody got any idea as to the type and the heritage of the coal hoppers at the Chickamauga coke oven and/or the Blue Heron mine site?

Les

The hoppers at Blue Heron on the Big South Fork are former C&O (70 ton?) hoppers painted black and lettered Southern.Their website shows the tipple with cars but it is hard to make out the cars underneath it.

Stumbled across this thread from 2009 showing the preserved J.H. Hawes elevator in Atlanta, Illinois and a Wabash single sheathed boxcar parked next to the structure. Realizing that I had recently run across a similar display, thought I would add it to this thread:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3809578

This is the circa 1902 Milwaukee Elevator Company structure in Preston, Minnesota. The box car parked next to the elevator is MILW 34588, built in 1939. Nice touch here is that 1951 built Milwaukee Road caboose #992095 was added on a second track. Not sure if this is the way the tracks were originally arranged in Preston, but if the caboose was on the former main line track, the street light must have been added later. Preston was about 6 miles from the start of a 50 mile CMStP&P branch to Caledonia, Minnesota. Wonder if there are any other existing vintage elevators that use an old box car as part of their interpretive story?

Les

Well, the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis includes this 1880's boxcar:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/millcitymuseum/14944869820/in/album-72157646476368960/

The Mill City Museum looks great. Wonderful old boxcar. I wonder how many 19th century freight cars still exist. Nice to see them!

There is a conservation report about the box car available on line:
THE CONSERVATION OF AN 1879 HASKELL AND BARKER WOODEN BOX CAR

Across the river in St. Paul is the Minnesota History Center also operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. It has a steel Soo Line box car inside the building as part of a display about Minnesota history. The box car has been in the Museum for probably a couple of decades.

Here is a write-up about the exhibit with a photo of the car. This newspaper article tells about the concept of engaging school age children with the local history.
Making history go 'Wow'

Les,

The Georgia cars are on the list. I believe they are ex Reading.

Rob

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... o/htmlview

The Issaquah, WA depot museum has a steel Great Northern flat loaded with a steam donkey.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... key_01.jpg

How does one submit corrections to that list?

Tom

Camp Elkanah is located near Starkey, OR about 17 miles southwest of Hilgard on Highway 244. Donated to the Blue Mountain Conservative Baptist Assn. in 1956 by Herbert Tempelton president, Mt. Emily Lbr. Co. The main buildings at the camp are ten Mount Emily Lbr. Co. bunk cars built on Great Northern box car frames. All of the frames were built in the 1890s.