Private Car 555

It appears that Private Car 555 (Formerly C&NW 555/7902) ended up on static display at a pumpkin farm in Homer Glen, IL, adorned in Rock Island paint.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1492530

Oh, it's at Bengston's. The guy who owns that place must be somewhat of a railfan. He bought the remaining trains that Kiddieland was using before the park closed. The steam train has been leased to the Hesston Steam Museum in Indiana but the diesel sets have been MIA since Kiddieland closed. Rumor going around was that they were going to be used at this pumpkin farm.

I check the Railway Preservation News forum from time to time. Car 555 and the Rock diner 425 are currently listed on Sterling Rail.
http://www.sterlingrail.com/classifieds ... hp?id=9435" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.sterlingrail.com/classifieds ... hp?id=9410" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But they are saying the cars were just scrapped.
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Club car 555 is an interesting piece of Chicago commuter rail equipment, but sort of plain. Being sort of up to date from its use on Metra, it should be the kind of private passenger car that is in demand and relatively easy to transport.

The loss of 425 might really be a tragedy, I thought someone around here posted that it is very complete and the owner even had a full set of original Rock Island dining car materials such as china. The car may have also been the final diner in use on the Peoria Rocket, which would also make it very likely that the car became the restaurant at LaSalle Street Station.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2722387" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm sure that the fact that these cars were away from live rail makes them a difficult sale, due to moving expense. Even if cars can't be moved on their own wheels, shipping them on a flatcar seems to be the preferred alternative to the expense of hiring a special truck and dealing with permits and routing restrictions. So if anybody gets the idea of "preserving" outside of a museum any railroad equipment larger than something that can fit on a normal flatbed trailer, try to keep it near live rail.