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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Restoration of Milwaukee Road Skytop sleeping car planned
I bet it’ll look awesome in IC clors!
Proper restoration should entail the Milw. color scheme, all else is an example, which has afflicted American railroads for decades, of historical short-sightedness.
I remember eating on the Olympian barge in Detroit. I often wondered what happened to it. I guess that it went the way of the narrow-gauge streetcars.
Glad to see what is happening.
I’d love to be on a trip with it.
Glad to see what is happening.
I’d love to be on a trip with it.
Mr Thoms:
Olympian barge in Detroit??? I am curious would you be so kind and provide some detail.
Thanks in advance.
I went on a trip to Halifax back in 1974 with my parents and my brother, thinking we were going to have a bedroom in the Skytop car and when the sleeping car conductor tols us that they didn’t have them, my dad was not happy about that at all and quite frankly, the rest of us didn’t exactly jump for joy over that either.
I assume he’s talking about the SS Lansdowne. Was a railroad car ferry from 1884 that was retired in the 1970’s, converted into a restaurant in the early 80’s, and served in that capacity for a decade or so before languishing. There were attempts to resurrect it but nothing happened after the Lansdowne and the cars were stripped and she even sank at her moorings a few times.
She was finally scrapped about 5 years ago. The scrapper tried to be generous and “save” these two cars, but that entailed chopping them apart even though they were previously intact besides a door being cut in the side of each of them since his crane couldn’t lift much. The underframes and those rare trucks were scrapped (Perhaps the worst crime of all since some say those door openings ended any chance of restoring the cars themselves to operation) and the chopped up body pieces went to Minnesota as this article says.
Leo;
Thanks for the information. What a shame about the cars.
As a result of the 1977 CTC ruling, will these cars not be allowed to run on VIA? Or anywhere else in Canada?
This is GREAT news. If anyone can bring this beauty “back to life” it is Iowa-Pacific. It SHOULD look really dynamic in their former IC colors. The paint scheme chosen is certainly less important than having the car back in service again, and properly cared for…
There’s something special about those glass-roofed observation cars. It’s a special feeling.
I’ve seen the hulks of the two cars from the Olympian barge sitting in Montevideo next to the building the MRHC has an HO layout that several of us are building for the museum. They are pretty rough. Without floors and trucks, they don’t look like much.
In 1959 I rode in a 14-section Tour-a-Lux sleeper from Seattle to Missoula, MT and we walked through sleeper Lake Keechelus to the Marble Creek Skytop car. It was such a pleasant time in the Skytop Lounge.