The way things oughta be...

[GP30Rider]

I remember in '93 the outrage when they all got dipped in red, and the goofy train names applied to their sides.  Would be nice to see some of the old NS stuff get re-untied, Man O' War would be awesome to see in SR green again!  It looks like the rest of the NS owned stuff from the '94 shut down of steam ended up at WM scenic.   It would have been something if NS had worked out some sort of trade to get these old gems back.  But I'm sure these other entities would not want to give up these revenue haulers and would ask a  premium price. FWIW, about 3 miles from my house is the Commissary (baggage car) car 'North Florida' which is nearly faded to pink!

I think some of this can and will be seen again but it takes time and money.  There are currently four stainless cars that belong to the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum and one more that belongs to TVRM.  Actually one at Oak Ridge is privately owned but that's another story.  While none of them are part of the "original five" they would all look mighty handsome in service together.  I know that SARM would gladly accept donations toward restoration of former Southern/Central of Georgia Coach #665 named the Fort McPherson.  

[Batman]

I found this slide of the 1827 today while looking thru some boxes.  We recently had to rebuild the A/C
system on this jewel to get it to finally work.  pic is from roanoke in june 1987

[etalcos]

Batman, glad to hear you got the old girl to straighten up and fly right.  She'd sure look good in a proper coat of Wabash Blue though. 

The truly sad part is that at the time the 840s were being "upgraded" you could still get the Pullman fluting new from Bombardier.  In recent times many of the BN office cars got new fluting so they would better match the former ATSF stainless that they would be running with.  Of course this was being done at the behest of the same folks that killed the program a few years later.  Speculation was at the time that the expenditures on the equipment was to make the program too costly to continue.  So if the "upgrades" were poor quality it didn't really matter as long as they cost enough to kill it.