Fewer Highliners

The Heritage Rail Alliance spring conference was this past weekend in Boone, Iowa, and it was reported back to me that there were fewer ex-Illinois Central "Highliner" cars there than the PNAERC list may have suggested. Some digging revealed that, sure enough, the Boone & Scenic Valley has disposed of three out of the five "Highliners" that were on the property in fall of 2023. Most likely, these cars were cut up later that year or in early 2024, though I'm not exactly sure.

Anyway, Metra cars 1511 (shown above), 1551, and 1628 (shown below) have now all been removed from the PNAERC list. This leaves a total of 15 electric cars at Boone, including cars 1506 and 1523. Like the three scrapped cars, these two were built by St. Louis Car Company in 1971 and retired from service in 2007.

There are now 16 "Highliners" still on the PNAERC list: the remaining two at Boone, four at IRM, and 10 at the Museum of the American Railroad in Texas. The entire list currently stands at 2,083 pieces.

EDIT: A few weeks after this post, I received updated information indicating that the two cars retained by B&SV were not 1506 and 1523, as I had supposed, but 1511 and 1628. Cars 1506 and 1523 have apparently been scrapped. The PNAERC list has been updated with this corrected information.

Lackawanna Trailer Removed

Thanks again to Wesley Paulson, who was able to contact Travis Stevenson with the Boone & Scenic Valley to ask about 1925-vintage Lackawanna "low roof" MU trailer 3208. This was one of the cars on my "status unknown" list, but Travis confirmed that the car was scrapped quite some time ago - possibly around 20 years ago. It may not have lasted much past the photo I took above when I visited in 2003.

Boone is now down to 18 pieces of equipment on the PNAERC list, while the list overall is currently at 2,085 pieces of equipment.

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.

South Shore Combine Scrapped

Sources have reported that South Shore combine 102, pictured above back in 2008, has been cut up at the Boone & Scenic Valley. The car had been derelict for years, and looks like it had been a source of spare parts. It was part of the line's first order for combines, from Pullman in 1926, and had been at Boone since retirement in 1984. Boone's PNAERC roster now stands at 20 cars.

South Shore combines have fared pretty poorly in preservation. All were lengthened and air-conditioned, but if anything the A/C has made them a greater challenge for museums to put - or keep - in service. Car 102 is the fifth to be scrapped in the preservation era, leaving only four - two of them "tunneled" hulks in Chesterton, Indiana - still around. Of the remaining two, car 106 is also at Boone and is the only South Shore combine currently in operational condition. Car 107 is at East Troy, which is unusual in that they have two South Shore cars fitted with A/C (albeit coaches, not combines) in regular use as a heavily rebuilt "dinner train."

South Shore Combine Scrapped

Many thanks to Dan Hodgson, who reported via Facebook that property cleanup at the Boone & Scenic Valley has continued with the scrapping of South Shore combine 109. This car had been at Boone since the mid-1980s but had never operated there, and together with combine 102 has long been stored in a derelict state. (It should also be pointed out that the only South Shore combine currently preserved in operating condition anywhere is car 106 at Boone.) Dan posted several photos on Facebook, of which a few are presented here for posterity.

Before:

After:

The scrapping of car 109 isn't a huge loss, partly because there are other examples and partly because it was probably inevitable given its poor condition. Car 102 may follow it at some point, though that's not certain right now. Even with that, though, there will be two combines of this series preserved intact (106 at Boone and 107 at East Troy) and another two in "tunneled" but largely presentable condition in Chesterton, Indiana. It's not an awful survival rate for a series of 12 cars.

Kennecott Copper Steeplecab Scrapped

Kennecott Copper 703, an 85-ton articulated-frame steeplecab located at the Boone & Scenic Valley in Iowa, has been scrapped. The above photo was taken, and was among several posted online, this week by Dan Hodgson. This locomotive was built by GE in 1928 and worked its entire career at Kennecott Copper, or KCC, until it was retired in the early 1980s. It was one of four KCC steeplecabs that went to Boone in 1986. I'm not really clear on why Boone acquired them, but I presume it was because they resemble a similarly large steeplecab that once ran on the Fort Dodge Des Moines & Southern (photo). Anyway, two - KCC 408 and 409 - were cut up by B&SV years ago, but 702 and 703 have remained in increasingly derelict condition.

This photo of KCC 702 was also taken this week and posted by Dan Hodgson. The loss of KCC 703 is of only moderate significance. It was one of nine (now eight) surviving KCC steeplecabs and was one of three (now two) survivors of this type, the other two being 702 in Boone and KCC 700, preserved at the Western Railway Museum in markedly better condition - in fact, 700 is operational, which I believe makes it the only KCC electric to have operated in preservation. But 702 and 703 are not the only large industrial steeplecabs in preservation, and the KCC locomotives preserved elsewhere do not seem to be in much danger.

Miscellaneous updates

A couple of updates have been made to cars on the PNAERC list. First, courtesy of an HRA end-of-year roundup comes news that South Shore 106 in Boone, Iowa has been returned to operation for the first time in some two decades. The car had formerly been listed as "displayed inoperable" but this has been suitably updated. This brings to three the number of museums with operational South Shore cars; of the other two, IRM (like Boone) runs its using the original pantographs while East Troy runs its cars much more frequently using retrofitted trolley poles for ease of operation.

And via e-mail Walt Stafa points out that West Penn 832's listing has been perpetrating a falsehood, namely that the car's trucks are Brill 76E2's, which they are not. Oops!! They're actually a Cincinnati design, probably unique to this order, for which I cannot find an official designation. So lacking better information I'm calling them Cincinnati Arch Bars.