Uses For Old Freight Cars.

If you want a 1:1 caboose, here's one fellow's story of the process

These two both belong to a neighbor of mine who bought them directly from the Santa Fe and had them trucked the two miles from the tracks to his ranch. The caboose is complete with it's original trucks, and sits on it's own 20-yard stretch of track, while the retired boxcar sits flat on a poured concrete foundation.

The caboose has been outfitted as a guest house, and features full utilities, a modern kitchen, a color TV, and a double bed in the cupola. The owner says he likes to sleep in the cupola when it's raining, and he can listen to the patter of rain on the steel roof just above his head.

The old 50' steel boxcar now functions as a rat-proof barn, and keeps the horse tack and livestock feed safe and dry.

~Pete

I'd like a caboose, but for $37K I think I'd add on to the house. :(

There is a place outside of Pasco, WA state called P.F.& S. Railway Inc,

560 Ione Road that sold HO and N railroad supplies as a whole sale distributor and retailer. P.F.& S. are the initials for Pasco Feed and Seed. They had four 50 foot boxcars that were welded together to form the store that was attached to another building. One end of the boxcars was cut off. Neat store going down the aisles the length of the box cars. They had alot of HO freight car kits. Out in the middle of a corn field, drove down a gravel road to get there. Nice folks. They maybe out of business now. Dead link to their webpage.

searches for PF&S lead here, and it seems to be a living business. Looking on Google Earth I don't see anything that looks like the boxcar structure in that area, though.

560 Ione Road that sold HO and N railroad supplies as a whole sale distributor and retailer. P.F.& S. are the initials for Pasco Feed and Seed. They had four 50 foot boxcars that were welded together to form the store that was attached to another building. One end of the boxcars was cut off. Neat store going down the aisles the length of the box cars. They had alot of HO freight car kits. Out in the middle of a corn field, drove down a gravel road to get there. Nice folks. They maybe out of business now. Dead link to their webpage.

S A's original posting, boxcars and all, was pretty much correct. S P & S is (was) located about five miles north of Pasco just to the west of highway U S 395. I haven't visited that neighborhood for sometime (it's about 350 miles from home), but, always found it a pleasant place to do business. It was run by a family named Prantl (sic?). It was also a distributor and would grant wholesale prices to individual hobbyists. They always asked me if I were from out-of-state and, on seeing my driver's license, would forego Washington sales tax. If S P & S is no longer in operation, I, for one, am very sorry to learn of it. Thank you.

Jerry

Oops, another senior moment! Of course I meant to write P F & S not S P & S. And I even committed the error twice. I'm thoroughly red faced! Mea Culpa.

Jerry

Don't forget the use of old flat cars as bridges across small creeks! Somewhere I even saw a boxcar with the ends cut out that was a "covered" bridge.

-- Bob May

rmay at nethere.com http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net

Yup. We've got one like that which spans a small creek in the thriving metropolis of Arrowbear Lake, about ten miles north of my home.

Coincidentally, the "bridge" is located right next to an old dirt road that's the original roadbed for the Brookings Logging Company, a railroad that ran some small Shays through the San Bernardino mountains about 100 years ago.

The Shays, alas, are long gone; but the roadbed, a collapsed trestle, a few termite-ridden ties, and some rusted old spikes still remain for those willing to hike the route.

~Pete

Yep. There used to be one of them in Topanga Canyon (near Malibu). I don't go through there much anymore. It may have washed away/burned in a fire. It was of Santa Fe heritage.

Regards,

DAve

Surely there are some of you guys "seasoned" enough to remember the "Victoria Station" restaurants that were in larger cities that wre made up with old boxcars?

Then there's the Red Caboose Inn somewhere in Pennsylvania as I recall with cabooses made up as motel rooms.

There are still lots of old boxcars sitting around on the ground being used as temporary storage. But many of them seem to be getting replaced with shipping containers nowadays.

Finally, along the flatcar for a bridge theme... on Route 250 near Georgetown, Ohio, there is an old turntable bridge that is being used as a bridge across a small stream. I'm told it is ex-W&LE. The resourcefulness of people should always amaze us...

dlm

The Red Caboose Motel

I (we) stayed there in 1975 when I got married on my way out to Oklahoma.

Chris

he resourcefulness

In Topanga Canyon, in Southern California, there are several flatcar bridges over the creek. If they were to use old Auto-Loaders from the sixties they could have double-deckers, like the Bay Bridge.

Yep, I remember those. Sad to see them go. Inside South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA there used to be restaurant called the 20th Century Limited. The waiting and bar area was fashioned after Grand Central, but the dining area was actually old passenger and dining cars that had been put inside the mall. They even were sitting on sections of track.