Good evening,
Does anyone know if any World War II era troop cars were preserved and if so, are any in the midwest?
Thx in advance,
Dblstack
I have seen a troop mess car in a museum here in the South- I think you will find it at the rail museum located in Duluth, Georgia. The car was designed to provide meals to a troop train. It was all kitchen and apparently there was no permanant staff assigned- the cooks and KP’s (kitchen police- nasty dirty assignments troops) were drawn from the assigned mess soldiers of whatever unit the train was carrying.
Erik
The Fort Smith Toley Museum in Fort Smith Ar. has a MKT Mof W. car that is a modified troop car. It has been retrucked with roller bearing trucks.
This is a Hospatial kitchen car,
this was a “Troop Sleeper”
it has been converter in to a missle command car.
Gunns
Yes there is one at Ogden Union Station [:p]
[quote]
Originally posted by dblstack
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there is one in pristine condition in New Buffalo, Michigan n US 35.
I’m not familiar with that one–is it by the old roundhouse?
(U.S. 35 gets no closer to New Buffalo–or Michigan–than Michigan City, Indiana. Could it be somewhere off Route 212–which runs into 35–instead?)
There are a couple at the Wichita Falls Railroad museum. They were converted for MOW service.
Check out the NKP and Mad River museum in Bellevue,Ohio.They have a couple of restored ones.
There is a World War II hospital car in Snoqualmie, Wa
I thought it was US 35 but whatever the main drag is that runs in from the east and intersects US 12 in downtown at the traffic light - that’s the road. It is about 1/4 to 1/2 mile east on the south side of the road. I believe it could be an old roundhouse it is near that is now a bar. It has a dual brake system also.
B&O Museum
The is also one at the railroad museum in Temple TX.
dd
There is one South of Cincinnatti in Covington, KY.
I’m not 100% certain, but I believe there are a couple out on the back lot behind the steam shop at the Illinois Railway Museum. Almost everything back there has been saved from the scrapper, but has not been restored.
Much thanks to all who replied. I would have never guessed that there were so many still around.
Thanks,
Stack.
Most troop sleepers and troop kitchens from the WW2 era were sold off pretty quickly as surplus and those that weren’t scrapped were rebuilt to an incredibly wide variety of purposes, especially on Alaska RR.
Monon rebuilt hospital cars to re-equip its passenger trains and also rebuilt some troop sleepers or troop kitchens to mail and express cars.
Incidentally, the hospital kitchen car shown above is from the postwar era.
Thanks for the specifics–yes, that’s in the area of the roundhouse (there should be a coal dock there yet, too). The road is (or was) Michigan Highway 239–becomes Indiana Route 39 when it crosses the border. East (or south) of the railroad it has an interchange with I-94 (Michigan Exit 1), and also is the road for the “LaPorte” exit on the Indiana Toll Road.
C&O–or possibly the Pere Marquette–got quite a few troop cars after they became available. Most were converted for MofW use, but a few became box express cars.
Carl
OK, I knew that the Monon’s passenger fleet was old troop cars, so my question is: Did any of the Monon passenger cars survive?
There were two parked in Richmond at the military depot (my grandfather worked there but I don’t know the name of the base - it was just the depot to me). I don’t know if they are still there but they were there as long as I could remember going there.