The Mid-Continent Railway Museum is unveiling Great Northern #3261 for their fall special event train rides starting today and operating over the next two weekends (Autumn Color and Pumpkin Special trips). The wooden coach built by the Barney & Smith Car Co. in 1906 rolled out of Mid-Continent's restoration shop earlier this week, following a four month effort to repaint the car.

The car was brought into Mid-Continent's shop to "freshen up the car" as the previous paint job was beginning to peel and fade after 24 years. Repairs to the exterior wood was minimal as the car only sees seasonal use and spends the balance of the time on display in Mid-Continent's Coach Shed. The work scope included epoxy repairs(putty and liquid) one coat of primer and three coats of Pullman green.

Bill Buhrmaster
MCRM Restoration Dept

She's beautiful.

That is a beautiful car....a classic....

Nice work, and it's also a nice shade of Pullman green.

Nice

Undskyld, "flot".

Great work, Bill! You and the crew have done a beautiful job! It looks great outdoors instead of in the dusty barn.

And I'm looking forward to my "school room", LS&I 64, looking this good!

Best regards,
Fred Nystrom

Mid-C Folks,

How about an update on the new Car Shed. Are you going to put up an steel before the end of the year? The new foundation look great!

Ted Miles, Wood car preservatist.

Bill,
Congratulations and Many Thanks to the Car Shop Crew! This great work is another win for the shop forces and Mid-Continent.

To ted66: Word from our President is the construction company expects to begin building around the middle of October.

mld

My observations to add to Petes answer to building progress is something like this. Couple week ago while down there working the construction company was pouring footings. I would not want the concrete bill for this as this was a lot of concrete with the footing and walls which were approx 3' high. To my untrained eye the heavy grading is done and hard packed which has not been an easy thing to accomplish this year with record rainfalls over much of the state. The building site has been a literal swamp most of the summer. As Pete as alluded too the actual building should be going up soon. No ballast or topical layers were put down at the site yet as of this last Wed. There will be a lot of dump trucks of gravel and ballast to lay down and track to be installed. This is all contracted out so it will go fast when the work starts if we don't continue with the heavy rains we had this summer.

While the building thoughts may seem off topic to some, it is directly related to the museums car fleet and keeping the restored equipment under cover and stabilize the yet to be restored equipment. This is a big time improvement for the museum. When I walked it off I am hoping we can get the equivalent of 9 coaches under cover. This will free up a lot of track space in the yard as well as protect the less protected equipment that will be going undercover. I may be off on how much will fit in the building or if the plans will be including displays like the other car barn, but the donors who made this happen have done MC a great service in preserving railroad history. To them as well as the car shop/restoration crews I tip my hat to you. Regards, John.

wcb07 - Thanks for posting the pics of the beautiful work your group has done on this car. I had a chance to read the great write up about the history of 3261 on Mid-Continent's website. The narrative states, "In 1990 it was removed from service due to a leaking roof and placed in the car shop for a much needed exterior restoration. The work included all new custom-made poplar siding and trim. Most notably, the stained glass windows that were removed from the car some sixty years prior, were reproduced to recapture the car’s 1908-1926 appearance."

The small photos from 1993 and 1995 appear to show half elliptical clerestory windows but the pic from 2002 and the pics you posted show rectangular panels. Where the clerestory openings also originally stained glass? Were the openings originally rectangular, like the panels in your recent photos, or half elliptical? Thank you.

I believe the "panels" you are seeing are fly screens, which are missing in all the earlier photos, so allow the elliptical sash to show.

I was just in this car earlier this year, and it retains the elliptical clerestory sash.

Thank you.

Here is an interior view showing the clerestory window design.

Jeff,

Are those fixed sash? I don't see any hardware. If so, why the screens?

Mr. Lentz - Thank you for the photo. The interior is absolutely beautiful. Real nice work. Mr. Storzek out typed me. I was going to ask, are the panels removable or do they tilt inward to allow the placement of the rectangular screens on the outside?