Friday, December 29, 2023

Scratch One Highliner

It appears that ex-Illinois Central "Highliner" double-decker commuter car 1538 has been scrapped at the Boone & Scenic Valley. Sources have sent me conflicting information on whether it was already gone, but the photo posted above (from this thread on RyPN) claims to show the car in the early stages of being cut up. Given that the photo is a few months old, I assume the car is now scrapped. I've removed it from the PNAERC roster.

Boone has five "Highliners" left, but at least one or two of them are thought to be headed to scrap soon as well. The B&SV acquired six of the cars back in 2007, when the first batch were retired, suggesting these were the rougher cars in the overall fleet at the time. This is no huge loss: there are 14 of the giant cars preserved elsewhere, including four at the Illinois Railway Museum and 10 at the Museum of the American Railroad in Frisco, Texas.

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