Sticking with Russell's observation car theme, from October 1987 at Birmingham, AL is the private car Virginia City, built in 1928 for the Overland Limited and later owned by noted rail authors and wealthy socialites Luscious Beebe and Charles Clegg.
I mentioned in a previous post that former Minnesota Northern GP9 1471 was one of my favorite HESR diesels. It had only been working on the Huron and Eastern for a short time when it got a little help from the fork lift at Michigan Agricultural Commodities' Marlette plant on this cold day in the 2000's.
Apparently, when HESR received this engine, there was a fairly major leaking problem. I assume that the shop crew got it straightened out on a timely basis as I never saw this little process repeated.
What was this to begin with? A boom car perhaps? It sticks in my mind that a similar car was represented in an Ambroid kit a very long time ago.
It's one of those things you encounter every so often when it's a too many chief's and not enough Indians situation. Chief 1 wanted full length passenger cars, Chief 2 wanted shorty passenger cars and Chief 3 wanted open air gondolas. No one could decide and the Indians got tired and outshopped this thing. Everyone got what they wanted and no one was happy about it. We now return you to the regularly scheduled discussion. Yes, yes, I know, totally uncalled for but hopefully it made you smile
