Illinois Railway Museum Blog

As a fan of the Great Northern I am always happy to report and to see work being done on this car.  Here is some history and some new images of current work sent in by Roger Kramer.

The John J. Mc Loughlin is a heavyweight sleeper car car built by Pullman to plan 3979A as an 8-1-2 configuration in 1929.  This was part of an order for 28 cars to inaugurate the flagship train EMPIRE BUILDER, and may be the only preserved example of new heavyweight equipment built for that service.  It is very significant to railroad history.

The car received mechanical air conditioning with an auxiliary brine tank in 1936, with the brine tank removed in 1947.  When new streamlined lightweight equipment for the Empire Builder followed WW II, the car was sold to the Illinois Central in 1948, and the IC leased it back to the Pullman Company.  It was withdrawn from service in 1962 and joined the IRM collection in 1998.

The Pullman Company Car Construction records indicate it was originally painted Pullman Standard Green and it carried the EMPIRE BUILDER name on the letterboards.  That is the scheme to be used in our restoration.

On the IC it was repainted into the Panama Limited brown and orange and in March 1956 it included a major shopping and repainting following an accident, spending 24 days in the shops.

According to Pullman records, at various times the car saw service on the Pennsylvania RR, the Texas and Pacific, Western Pacific, and Chicago and Eastern Illinois.

Setting Up

Mark Hoffman is setting up scaffolding, with help from Roger Kramer (photographer).

East End

The work is ongoing to needle chip all the old layers of paint from the east end and vestibules.

BRRAP

The needle chipper makes good progress in the capable hands of Mark

Cornering

With some of the flat sheeting done, Mark moves on to some of the corner work.

The plan, as mentioned above, is to have this car repainted and carrying the EMPIRE BUILDER lettering.  Of course this could be done in a year or two, with a few (more than one) hundred thousand dollars.  We would send the car to a contractor to do all this repair and repainting in his shop.  But that money is not on hand, so as with many projects, we rely on the IRM volunteers to squeeze every penny of value from the limited funds available.  And progress is being made.

So even though not a lot of money is being spent right now, we could use more for paint, supplies, materials, parts and tools that are needed; and here is the inevitable commercial message.  Please support the work with a donation to the restricted fund RMCLOU.  It will not be wasted.