It would appear that the fledgling railroad museum in Truckee, California is not thriving. I was contacted as a representative of Nevada State Railroad Museum regarding the rolling stock and our interest in it. We really aren’t in a position to acquire any of it so I throw this out to all of you. The collection consists of:
A burro crane
A GE center cab
Passenger car
A steam wrecker with tender.

There is a rotary snow plow however the city of Truckee has expressed an interest in it.
PM me if you desire more information.

CCdW

....annnnnnd there you have your reason why the 'museum' went under!
I get that all museums have to start somewhere, but I counter that with, "Yeah, but when you start, there has to be a reason for someone to come look over what you have."

Aw geez, another couple of cranes facing the torch. Guess rotaries are sexier than wreckers or burros. That 160 ton steam Bucyrus sure looks nice.

From info on the internet, it looks like, in addition to the 160 ton (SP?) crane, they have a 10 ton example, but not really a burro crane as it was originally steam, later rebuilt with a gas engine. Also a grounded EsPee bay window caboose. The center cab GE is an 80 ton model and the passenger car a 1950 sleeper. The 160 ton derrick also has a SP flat car as a boom car.

They apparently were adjacent to the historic 1900 SP depot which today houses the local Chamber of Commerce, a Welcoming Center and is the Transportation Center.

Les

Truckee-Truckee Donner Railroad Society
Brownhoist C/N 3038 10 tons Steam (converted to gas) 1908? 4-wheel
unknown first owner
Joseph Levin & Sons (Huntington Park ) Los Angeles, CA
Joseph Levin & Sons San Francisco, CA
California State RR Museum Sacramento, CA 08-27-87
TDRS 2008
http://www.truckeedonnerrailroadsociety ... nhoist.htm
Bucyrus Erie C/N 10985 160 tons Wrecker Steam 06-30
Southern Pacific RR #691> #7011>#7007>#7050
Nevada State RR Museum Carson City, NV (never moved to Carson City) late 1980’s
Southern Pacific RR 1995
Jim Dobbas Co. Truckee, CA 1998
TDRS 10-31-11
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bayarearailfan/6037439546/

http://truckeedonnerrailroadsociety.com/museum/museum.htm
lists the RR equipment.

Passenger car is SP 9053 blunt-end 10-6 sleeper (Pullman, 1950) in faded City of San Francisco paint (ex R&LHS, ex CSRM, ex GGRM).

- Doug Debs

People grossly underestimate the value of an operational wrecking derrick. Give me a derrick, a circular open space a bit larger than the maximum reach of the boom and an old gondola car and I can create an operating exhibit that WILL draw people in. People want to see things move and operate and a derrick can provide that in spades.

I always thought that a museum with a train wreck exhibit would pack in the visitors. Especially if a few examples of wrecked locomotives and cars were on hand as well as a derrick to demonstrate how wrecks used to be cleaned up.

Not saying that would have been an option to the Truckee group but it might be an idea for an operation somewhere else that is having attendance problems.

Rick -

A few years ago, as one of the attractions at the Monticello Railway Museum's "Railroad Days", Illinois Central steam pile driver # X238 was fired up and passengers rode in IC side door caboose #9926 while X238 went out a ways and then used its boom to pick up an object alongside the track and then set it back down. Unfortunately, the pile driver needs some boiler work and hasn't been run now in a couple of years.


Les

As background, this car is a 10-6 sleeper with an end that is streamlined to resemble a blunt-end observation car. It is a good example of post-war industrial design efforts and (to the best of my knowledge) it also retains its steam heating and DC electrical cabinet.

Does anyone here have information on where this car operated in its service life? Some quick searching indicated that this car was first assigned to the Cascades service and was frequently set out at Portland. Did it operate on other SP services later in its life.

Antique Powerland at Brooks, OR draws a good crowd with their wrecker. They pick up a freight car truck and set it off the track then put it back on again.

SP 10-6 #9053 is in an internal SP list from May 6, 1959, being painted in the "gray" scheme and assigned to trains 11 & 12. It's sister car 9054 was on the other train set of 11 & 12.

According to Tom Madden's Pullman car listing, 9053 had an in-service date of July 21, 1950. Withdrawn from Pullman lease on 27-Mar-69.

From the painting information on the list, the car appears to have been repainted in 1953 and then again without a date ("Two-tone gray; D6311B (9/18/53); CED4232M (nd)") -- but not knowing what the paint diagram numbers mean, I cannot say what the paint schemes were.

This is very true. Operating equipment and educational demonstrations of operating practices grab the visitors' attention and engages them. They enable the visitor to use their senses. The visitor doesn't have to settle for looking at an artifact or a picture, reading a description, and then trying to imagine how it worked, sounded, smelled, felt, or looked. They can experience it first hand, live, and in living color. Not all artifacts are suitable for such demonstrations. Careful consideration must be taken. I have worked at one of our nation's greatest maritime museums for going on twelve years now doing just this very thing. My job there is in our interpretation and education department, specifically the "demonstration squad". My co-workers and I spend the day on the museum grounds demonstrating the use of a wide variety of equipment for the visitors. Some of these demonstrations even allow for audience participation. We've consistantly received glowing reviews over the years and see many return visitors to our demonstrations.

Those painting diagrams are probably in the collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago. Drawing D-6311-B means D-size, 6311 is the serial number, and B is the revision level.

The other drawing: CE means office of Chief Engineer, D is the size, 4232 the serial number, and M the revision level. Given the lower serial number and the "CE" prefix, this is an earlier drawing than 6311, though it's had many revisions. (There used to be a Mechanical Engineer's office with their own sequence of drawings, which were prefixed with "MD". When that office was abolished, the Chief Engineer's draftsmen stopped prefixing their drawings with "CE".)

Some painting/lettering drawings have been digitized and are available online at the Newberry website: https://www.newberry.org/pullman-digital-collection - you might look there and see if these two are included.

Thank you for the information. I was unaware that Newberry had these digital images on line. I was aware that several years ago they had a slow project of making digital copies of Pullman drawings

It is interesting to see what has been scanned and placed on-line.

By reference, the D-4232 drawing appears to be of the SP silver body and red letterboard style.

However, the paint and stripping drawing for SP cars in joint service and painted in UP style indicates that car 9053 was assigned to that joint service on or about a revision made 6-10-63. At that time cars 9043 & 9044 were removed from the list on the drawing and cars 9053 and 9055 replaced them.

Truckee History - Railroad Museum added 3 new photos
June 29 at 9:20am ·

Both the Railyard developers and Union Pacific have refused to let us keep our rolling stock on their property. And, there is no other space available for the rotary snow plow, Pullman, and cranes. We may be forced to scrap the railroad cars or give them away.


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