zardoz wrote:Are those the cars that are still in CNW colors, but have the name "Lake States Railroad" printed above the doors?
I am not sure about names above the doors but the cars are NOT in C&NW colors at this time.
Nope the one that were on the E9 were painted Red/Grey with Wisconsin & Southern titles on them. Maybe there are others that they have that are not painted in Wisconsin & Southern colors yet?
Is Lake States Railroad a new start-up Wisconsin could really use a few more rail lines. Especially in the Milwaukee area.
blugoose wrote: Nope the one that were on the E9 were painted Red/Grey with Wisconsin & Southern titles on them. Maybe there are others that they have that are not painted in Wisconsin & Southern colors yet?Is Lake States Railroad a new start-up Wisconsin could really use a few more rail lines. Especially in the Milwaukee area.
My mistake.
A few years ago I photographed two CNW bi-levels parked on the Wisconsin Central siding at Honey Creek. I just looked at the photos, and they are named "Great Lakes Western", not Lake States. The cars are both cab-cars, and they were numbered 700 and 703. They had red marker lights installed on the non-cab-car end.
I don't know much about the Great Lakes Western's operations, but I will tell you what I do know.
They painted almost everything in C&NW paint, as the owners were C&NW fans.
Their main "office" was out of Mukwonago,WI. I have slides of multiple passenger cars on the East Troy Municipal Railroad connection track in my collection.
They supplied passenger cars for different events on Wisconsin and Michigan railroads, such as the E&LS, and the WC.
Here's a pic of a E&LS Shippers special with a couple GLW cars.....
Here's a pic of a freshly painted Bi-Level....
I also believe that the Flambeau was a GLW car. It is shown stored here with at least 1 GLW car--the ex-VIA can be seen on the pic of the E&LS Shippers special. The Flambeau is now for sale, and stored up at the Wisconsin Great Northern. It was never a C&NW car in real life.....
I will post more pics tonight or tomorrow of GLW's cars, and pics of a WC special with GLW cars. Also, GLW cars in front of the old Gladstone, MI depot. They are slides, and I will need to scan them.
Great Lakes Western is no more. They have been gone for at least 10 years to my knowledge.
The bi-levels at Horicon are NOT WSOR cars. They are owned by a private company, who resells them to railroads. A year ago there was a thread on here about these cars. There used to be ex-MILW bi-levels at North Lake, WI and Horicon, WI. The cars at North Lake were coaches (about 27 cars on the old line to North Lake) and the cars at the Horicon shops were all Cab Cars, so they would be able to watch them better, so no one vandalized the controls.
Now I see they moved the ex-MILW cars out, and brought in the old RTA/C&NW/RI smoothside cars.
The cars that WSOR painted up for their 25th anniversary used to be used on the "Badger Specials" which brought passengers in inter-city Madison and Middleton to the Kohl center and Camp Randall for sports events (mainly football) many years ago.
Phil
As Phil said, the WSOR Bilevels were mainly painted up for the 25th anniversary operations in the summer of 2005, and they had been used before for the Badger football specials. They have been used since the 25th anniversary celbrations though for a few other purposes, including two Employee Excursions and a few other celebrations that towns on the WSOR have had.
As to whether these were bought for a dollar I'm not sure. I do know that the WSOR had the chance to buy a bunch of ex Metra bilevel cars for $1 per car, but the problem was they contained asbestos insulation. If the WSOR had bought any, Metra would have required that the WSOR immediately remove all asbestos from every car purchased as soon as they arrived on the WSOR's property. Some cars had already had the work done in prevous years, but the problem was that no records were kept as to which cars got that treatment, and so every car would have still had to have been completely ripped apart. Of course that costs a heck of a lot of money to do because of the specific way the work must be done. As far as I know the WSOR didn't buy any cars from this deal, but I don't remember for sure. And I definately don't have any idea what the 3 red and grey bilevels were purchased for.
Noah
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