Thomas Centennial Park (formerly "Railroad Park") in Chesterton, IN is being enhanced with new restrooms and a warming/cooling house made from a boxcar and caboose, respectively. The boxcar, described as a 50-foot bunkerless refrigerator car built in 1962, was imported from Orrville, OH and has been painted in Monon colors. The caboose, of unspecified origin, has been painted bright red with NS markings (photos attached).

They used crowdfunding for the project, via patronicity.com. Link to the project page is here: https://www.patronicity.com/project/thomas_centennial_park_restrooms#!/

For those curious, the ex-South Shore Line cars (17, 26, 100 and 104) remain at the site opposite Thomas Park, across the NS mainline. Over time, they've lost their CSS&SB paint and pantographs, as the attached photo shows.

For those that may keep track if these type of things, the reefer is ex-D&RGW #60608. We still have some of the DF loader beams and jacks from this car if anyone has an interest.

Thanks for filling in that detail. The east truck, an ASF Ride Control, had "D&RGW" cast into the sideframe, which made me wonder. The west truck is a Barber S-2 with no road identification.

The S2 came from B&O #474725 which made figuring out the car's heritage a little difficult. Our assumption is that Art Davis swapped out that truck from the B&O car that may have been scrapped at DABO.

Is that an old South Shore caboose?

Fantasy scheme... But it looks nice. Keep in mind, this isn't a museum, and it's not a Monon car.

NS3322 -

Not sure for certain, however in Peter Nicholson's initial entry for this thread, he mentions a Link to the placement of the box car and caboose. In that link are some interior photos of the placed caboose, a couple of which show a number over the door; 006. This is one of the numbers given to the 8 ex-AT&SF cabooses that the South Shore purchased a number of years ago. The Santa Fe numbers of the cars were: 999008; 999024; 999061; 999096; 999149; 999196; 999257 and 999486. Not sure if the South Shore renumbered them in order.

Also in that Link that Peter mentioned are a couple of proposed drawings of the caboose and boxcar and how they would look in Chesterton. Those drawings show a caboose lettered for the Rio Grande (!) and the box car lettered for the ORIGINAL Norfolk Southern (!!). Sure would have been neat if those particular paint schemes had actually been put on those two pieces of equipment! Not sure if any equipment exists in preservation that is lettered for the original NS. The choice of using the Monon for the boxcar is a bit surprising in itself since the old Monon never serviced Chesterton.


Les

Thanks Les for providing those details!
In the RR Picture Archives profile for this caboose it states #006 or #6 is "alternate numbering for CSS 10006, ex-ATSF."
I am going to assume for now that the caboose is ex-CSS.
This is how the caboose looked in 2016:


Glad to see it has been "preserved."
There is another South Shore caboose in Chesterton (CSS 10004) at Riley's Railhouse.

True, though they did serve nearby Michigan City. The colors, similar to the scheme used on the Monon's freight diesels, are those of Purdue University in West Lafayette (gold and black); the Monon's passenger diesels wore the red and white of Indiana University in Bloomington (and you'll notice red and white were the colors selected by Chesterton for the AT&SF/SSL caboose).

Thanks to all who replied to my initial posting; I hoped it would elicit the history of the two cars, and it did. I'll take some project completion photos next time I'm in NW Indiana.

From the photo of CSS # 006 submitted by NS 3322, its obvious that whoever restored the caboose did an excellent job.

In addition to the second CSS/AT&SF caboose in Chesterton (at the nearby Riley's Railhouse) there is a third CSS/AT&SF caboose in Springville, Indiana which is just north of La Porte, located off of U.S. 20 and a bit west of Indiana state route 39. This one was restored as Santa Fe # 999061, with just a bit of additional advertising info:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4541030

I believe that at least one of the original 8 cabooses purchased by South Shore Freight, is still owned by the railroad.

Les

Haha, my photo again. Forgot about the caboose in Springville...
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the "Wabash" caboose on the Black River & Western Railroad is also a former CSS caboose, #999096/#10003.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspict ... ?id=568418
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspict ... ?id=145615

Peter -

I guess the Purdue (black and gold) and Indiana University (red and white) makes as much sense as anything. I notice that there is a number (or...?) up between the cupola windows on the caboose there in Chesterton. My computer screen isn't big enough for me to see the number. The next time you are up in NW Indiana to take some additional photos of the project, perhaps you can get a better shot of that number.

Les

It just says "06-2018" on both sides of the cupola.

.