PULLMAN COMPANY

Business Car "Federal" (Privately Owned)


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The open end platform on business cars like this provide an impressive setting for high-ranking dignitaries to address the public. Many speeches have been given from behind that brass railing.

 

This car was built in 1911 for Pullman charter operations out of St. Louis. It was used by Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson during their travels between 1911 and 1916. It was sold to the Lackawanna Railroad in 1933 and was used by former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson during his 1952 presidential campaign.

 

The car was purchased by private owners in 1992. They extensively remodeled it and brought it to the Arizona Railway Museum in 2005. It is the oldest car certified for travel on Amtrak trains.

 

The heavyweight business car "Federal" was built in February 1911 by the Pullman Company in lot 3812, plan 2492, for their extensive charter operations. It was one of the first all-steel business cars built. Its length is 79 feet 11 inches over end sills.

 

In December 1933 it was sold to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. On January 4, 1934 the car was renamed "Pocono" and was assigned to the Lackawanna Official Business Car fleet and the Vice President of Operations. Shortly after that in February the name was changed again, this time to "Anthracite."

 

In 1949 the Lackawanna completely removed the business car names. "Anthracite" became DL&W No. 2. In July or August 1950, the number was changed to DL&W No. 98. The car was retired when the DL&W merged with the Erie Railroad in 1960 and became the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad.

 

In February 1961 EL sold No. 98 to Clarence D. Jones, an engineer with the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad. He moved it to a siding in McRocks, Pennsylvania and named the car "Clarence D Jones."  In January 1990 the car was sold to William E. Gray and was relocated to DuBois, Pennsylvania for restoration.

 

In March 1992 private owners purchased the car and formed Lackawanna Ninety-Eight, Inc. In 1993 the car was moved to a railcar shop in New London, Ohio for repairs. When that shop went out of business in 1997, "DL&W 98" hit the rails once again and was relocated to Mid-America Locomotive and Railcar Repair in Evansville, Indiana in the summer of 1998. In May 1999 the car began extensive restoration which lasted until October 2002 when it received Amtrak certification. It was during this time the owners decided to rename the car "Federal" to honor its history.

 

To prepare it for charter service, the owners had it moved to their hometown of Rochester, New York. To get it there, CSX moved it by freight to St. Louis, then Amtrak moved it to Rochester via Chicago with a stop at the AAPRCO convention in Baltimore along the way. The owners eventually moved it to the Arizona Railway Museum in 2005.

5/26/2016 - View of the car getting ready to depart Tumbleweed Park on a private excursion.
5/26/2016 - View of the car getting ready to depart Tumbleweed Park on a private excursion.

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