The Annie hopper is still in Sparta, unchanged over the past few years. It sits with a C&O 50-foot insulated boxcar (#5606), a C&O wide-vision caboose (#[90]3132) and most interestingly (to me, at least) a fully-intact C&O RoadRailer, with both its road and rail gear. Numerous RoadRailer bodies are scattered around the former Chessie System in use as storage sheds, but this one and the one at the B&O Museum are the only ones I know of that have all of their traveling gear intact.

The West Michigan Railroad Historical Society owns the equipment and the TS&M depot at the north end of Union Street. The membership of the WMRHS has been in steady decline, like most similar groups, and is dwindling down to the essential few, with a pretty high average age. For a number of years, the Village of Sparta has talked of moving the depot to an historical village they are working on, east of town. I suspect that when that happens, anyone who wants the rolling stock would have to move fast.

The covered hopper is the piece that would be most at risk, since it can't be used for any secondary purpose. The RoadRailer is used for storage, the insulated boxcar contains an O gauge layout, and IIRC, the caboose contains a working toilet. I wonder whether the RoadRailer could be made street-legal again for movement on its own wheels, but that's another subject.

Here may be the strangest preserved two bay covered hopper; if it still exists:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1130793

Not quite sure why Rock Island 434 was put up on the roof of that building. But she looks pretty much intact (except for the trucks and couplers), at least in 2008, the date of that photo. Road number 434 may only be the first three of a longer number. If it DOES still exist, it certainly is the strangest preserved 2 bay covered hopper!

Les