Illinois Terminal 535 removed from list

A few different Facebook pages have, over the past couple of days, featured some pretty jaw-dropping photos of Illinois Terminal 535 in Harristown, Illinois. This interurban car body was offered for sale by the property owner last year but found little interest from the preservation community given its atrocious condition. So one well-meaning preservationist stepped up and made an attempt to move the car to a location at the Bloomington, Illinois airport. Unable to raise enough money to properly transport the car intact, the owner evidently planned to cut it in half, move it in two sections, and then piece it back together. However the car's condition (and its weight, which for some reason exceeded the capacity of the forklifts rented for the job) made this impossible too.

After the car had been cut in half, the decision was made to instead disassemble it on-site with the goal of eventual reassembly/restoration. However at this point, I'm removing it from the PNAERC list. While the car's owner is obviously dedicated and well-meaning, it strikes me as unlikely that the car can be realistically reassembled in its original form. At best it would be something akin to a replica, though given the paucity of resources available for the project even that seems like a tall order. The owner has also professed an interest in making the car part of a diner, which may itself disqualify the thing from inclusion on the PNAERC list even if it is reconstructed.

A history of car 535 can be found at the link above. Depending on how you look at it, IT 535 was arguably one of three preserved interurban sleeping cars. The other two are complete and still in their sleeping car condition: IT 504 at IRM and Interstate Public Service 167 in Squamish, BC.

Interurban sleeping car for sale

A post on Facebook here (no log-in required) reports that Illinois Terminal 535 is available for sale. The photo above is from that post. Car 535 is "sort-of" one of the last three interurban sleeping cars in existence. It was built by St Louis Car Company in 1911 as coach trailer 527 (it was part of the same series as, and was originally identical to, car 518 preserved at IRM). In 1930 the car was heavily rebuilt by the IT into a 9-bedroom sleeping car, renumbered 501, and given the name "Illinois." I'm not sure how much use it saw in sleeping car service given the onset of the Depression but in 1942 it was rebuilt again. This time its bedrooms were stripped out and it was turned back into a coach trailer numbered 535. It was sold into private ownership by the IT in 1966, went to the Monticello museum in 1972, and was then sold off by that museum in 1988. No other museum was interested so the body was sold to an individual who owned the IT depot in Harristown, Illinois. The car's body has been sitting next to the Harristown depot, more-or-less on the old interurban right-of-way, ever since. Its current owner is an individual who purchased the depot property a few years back, I believe.

So in a way - if considered on the merits of its 12-year bedroom car career - car 535 is quite historic. Only two other interurban sleeping cars still exist and both (IT 504 at IRM and IPS 167 in Squamish, BC) feature sections, not bedrooms. With some mental gymnastics you could also consider this the most modern interurban sleeper ever put into service, as I'm pretty sure nobody was building interurban sleeping cars after 1930. But while it's an historic car, it's also a pretty poor candidate for preservation. Unlike the other two extant sleepers, it's far from complete even as a coach, much less a sleeping car. It's a body and a pretty badly stripped one at that. Worse, its condition is wretched - from photos it looks like the body is wracked (racked?), the roof is in very poor shape, and the interior is a mess. It looks like it would be a project just to move the car at all without it collapsing. So unfortunately it seems like a bit of a stretch that it will find a new home and long-term preservation. But I suppose time will tell.