That's good. We often complain about old wood camp cars and the like with stripped interiors that have been allowed to deteriorate to the point of being too far gone for a restoration and detracting from the look of a museum, but one bright spot is that the trucks would probably not have survived otherwise.

Parlor Car update:

It is looking promising for the parlor car to be delivered to the Northwest Railway Museum next week! Permitting such an oversize load has been quite challenging, and it is restricted to moving between the hours of 1 AM and 6 AM - quite a change from the requirements for dimensional loads just a few years ago!

Meanwhile, today is Give Big for the Parlor Car! Give Big is a charitable giving event sponsored by the Seattle Foundation, and proceeds of contributions made in the Museum's name have been designated for the Parlor Car relocation project. Check out the Lastest Blog post

Richard R. Anderson
Northwest Railway Museum

Parlor car moved to Snoqualmie Valley via the Interstate highway system -

https://trainmuseum.blogspot.com/2018/05/parlor-car-service-on-interstate.html

This magnificent artifact is now at the Northwest Railway Museum. Lots of work remains; historic preservation requires a lot of patience and persistence.

Richard R. Anderson
Northwest Railway Museum
http://www.TrainMuseum.org

The parlor car is now on wheels at the Northwest Railway Museum:

https://trainmuseum.blogspot.com/2018/05/parlor-car-arrives.html

Admittedly, the car looks a little odd on top of 1950s vintage lightweight trucks, but it's temporary until historically-appropriate trucks can be moved to Snoqualmie. And for now it will give a few detail experts plenty to talk about. Anyone want to trade?

Thank you to everyone on RYPN that made a contribution in support of the parlor car preservation - you really made a difference!

Richard R. Anderson
Northwest Railway Museum

I'm guessing you have blocks between the truck and the car because the center pivot is the wrong size, which would account for how high the car is riding (just don't try to go through a switch). I wonder how lighweight car trucks would work on a wood car (my guess, inadequately).

Hello great news, i assume you have looked at the trucks available in Bellingham WA where we got ours, wood 6 wheel trucks and steel 6 wheel trucks.

Mike

Mike, the trucks in Burlington are now available only with the cars. Thanks for the suggestion though!

PMC, almost everything about the lightweight truck is wrong, but we needed to use what we had. We hope to have proper composite wood/steel six wheel trucks shortly. BTW, we did include greased side bearing plates so with close supervision the car can slowly move through a switch.

Richard R. Anderson
Northwest Railway Museum

How will the museum deal with the lack of truss rods? I assume that getting this support, or an alternative, is fairly important.

Joe,

For the time being, the center of the car is supported with blocking.

When rehabilitation is funded and work begins, new truss rods will be fabricated and installed. At the same time, the missing section of car side will be replaced, which includes the compression truss timbers that work with the truss rods. A missing section of belt rail will be installed. The truss plank will be made whole again, four missing studs will be fabricated and installed along with four missing braces. The missing letter board section will be replaced, two sets of windows will be fabricated, and two missing interior panels will be copied. There is also an iron tension bar that runs behind the belt rail, which helps support the ends of the car. It was cut for the doorways and will be spliced back together. Then the truss rod can be tightened so there is just a slight camber, and the car should support itself again!

Here is an image of the former doorway truss plank and belt rail replacement on chapel car 5 Messenger of Peace back in 2013. The original compression truss is to the left and the replacement will span diagonally across this former doorway:

Overall, this a pretty modest work plan for such an extravagant car. It is a truly remarkable find for the Museum.

Richard R. Anderson
Northwest Railway Museum

Nice to see a commitment to putting things back together correctly.

"There is also an iron tension bar that runs behind the belt rail, which helps support the ends of the car. It was cut for the doorways and will be spliced back together."

Let us know when you get to this part, and what you come up with. There is often not much room foe a splice plate.