One of our members alerted us that the collection of railroad artifacts and two pieces of rolling stock at the "Old Depot Museum" in Dassell, Minnesota is up for Auction. Here's the link to the auction announcement.
http://www.mangoldauctionservice.com/auction_detail.php?id=137536
and the newspaper article in the Dassell-Cokato Enterprise
http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/ ... tion2.html

Dassel is roughly 50 miles west of the Twin City metro area on the Great Northern's secondary main to Willmar, MN and Fargo, ND. Apparently the museum was privately owned.

Thanks!

That appears to be a CB&Q caboose/waycar in the advertisement. While I would love to see this restored and mated with a Q engine, it also might be of use to someone trying to replicate an 1860's passenger train.

I live just down the road a few miles from that place.
I've been in there. Mostly what they have is railroadiana, trinkets and crap. If someone knows of something that they just must have, contact me and I'll see if I can attend to get it for you, but I'm not planning to attend that auction otherwise. I can't think of a thing they have that I'd want.
Mark D.

In addition to the old CB&Q waycar, there were also two boxcars mentioned. I did a bit of searching on the internet and finally found a couple of photos on some website. It appears that the boxcars are old single sheathed wood cars that some railroad converted to MofW service as they appear to have windows cut in the sides. From what I could tell of the photos, they appeared to be painted up nicely, but also look to be resting on the ground; in other words...no trucks.

Les

Danger Will Robinson, Danger. IF these are ex CB&Q cars, check to see if they even have underframes... All the CB&Q boxcar bodies I've inspected on local farms had been prepared for sale as sheds by removing the entire center sill, body bolsters, and cross bearers, thus salvaging most the steel scrap in the car while making the body lighter for the farmer to haul away. The work was obviously done by the railroad, because the existing floor was supported with lengths of reclaimed bridge timbers (complete with abandoned bolt holes).

So, anyone who wants to bid better check to see if they are bidding on a complete carbody, or just the walls and roof.

Dennis -

I have yet to see a wood bodied car sold for use as a shed or for storage, that had its steel underframe intact. Not just CB&Q cars, but ANY railroads. There may be some wood cars with the steel underframes intact, but I have not yet run across any.

Les