Recently, in a discussion with a friend who recently visited the preserved CGW FP-7 in Oelwein, Iowa, the question of surviving CGW passenger equipment came up.

I am familiar with the combine (in C&NW colors) preserved at IRM, but was curious about what became of the other equipment, namely the former MILW rib side coaches, such as this one:

http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr0702/jc06.jpg

While I do not know the date of the photo, it appears the car survived into the post CGW era. Does anyone know what became of this car?

I thought the two former Milwaukee Road coaches went to the Michigan Railroad Club and that one or both were scrapped after being burned by vandals. Can anyone in Michigan (or anywhere else) comment on that?

Don C.

The combine car now owned by SRI and frequently used behind 1225 is ex-CGW, although I don't think it was originally CGW. SRI's website may have more details.

The Michigan Railroad Club did own two ex-MILW ex-CGW coaches. In 1976 or so they went to the ill-fated Cadillac and Lake City RR in northern Michigan, where they were extensively vandalized. I have heard from MRC members from the era that they were later sold to a private owner in Illinois. I don't think they survived long after that, but I have never heard conclusively of their disposition.

Chris.

There is a ex-C&O-EX CGW Combine in Hooper, Nebraska land locked by track missing on a bridge just a few humdred feet of Nickerson, Nebraska. It's in pretty good condition it was from the Council Bluffs C&NW wrecker train. The Haywood-Wakefield seats are gone. But I haven't seem it in a year or two.

The round-roofed combine at the Steam Railroading Institute is indeed an ex-CNW, ex-GCW, ex-C&O 1934 heavyweight. The modernization to sealed windows and Waukesha air-conditioning was presumably done by CGW around 1950.

I came across the two ex-CMStP&P 1934 Hiawatha cars after they (one or both - I don't remember) were burned by vandals at some sort of failed museum or tourist line in Jonesville, Michigan, around 1977, having been relocated from the C&LC along with the Baldwin-Westinghouse Diesel now at St. Paul.

- Aarne Frobom

I went on Google Maps and looked at the combine car, not a very clear picture. There is a good amount of other equipment there as well, so its suggesting it’s a museum. If so, what’s the name?

This looks like the car in question:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1073448

Yes, that is a former CGW combine. Though purchased by the Fremont & Elkhorn Valley Railroad(the operating museum), it was sold to the Fremont Dinner Train. It, IIRC, was never put in service, however, and went back in trade for a caboose to the FEVR. The car had the floor replaced, new windows and a paint job but was deemed not fitting with the dinner train and was traded.
There is no track missing, just an embargoed bridge just north of Nickerson.
Ira Schreiber
Fremont Dinner Train.
Our 22nd year!!

CGW McKeen motor car 1000 is located at NSRM. It could use a new friend and I would bet the folks in Nevada would be happy to let her go.
http://www.nsrm-friends.org/nsrm87.html