Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society

Just a friendly reminder about our efforts to bring back the Friendly Service Route! Make sure to visit our website for all updates and information on our cars - NKP City of Lima, and of course EL Diner 741.

http://www.eldcps.org

Michael Steinberg
Vice President - Communications


Photo by Karl Zimmerman

What's the latest and greatest? Any updates?

-otto-

We just posted our Fall 2003 newsletter at the website link in the post above. We have also been awarded a second TEA-21 grant in the amount of $94,000. This means we have enough money to complete the resotration of EL 741.

We have just announced the NKP 211 Club. The donations to the 211 Club will help us complete the restoration of NKP sleeper 211, the City of Lima. You can also find details for this at the website.

With the grant awarded, does this mean that the restoration work will start soon? Looking forward to future updates (and eating a meal someday).

-otto-

Will the NKP City of Lima get its stainless steel fluting replaced?

-otto-

Work on the 741 has been going on for a while now. Removing the false roof on the car when the Erie "modernized" it in their Susquehanna shops has been a slow painstaking job. Much of this work had to be done by hand because the side walls were insulated by Pullman with horsehair so care had to be taken to avoid setting this on fire. We hope that the major external repairs will be complete before the end of the year.

When the Illinois Central bought the City of Lima they removed the stainless steel fluting from the sides of the car. Unlike Budd where the stainless is part of the structure on Pullman built cars it was decorative. The remove by IC is what no doubt saved the car over the years as these pullman cars were notorious for water getting trapped between the stainless and the metal underneath and rotting the sides away. We think that replacing this fluting would only cause trouble down the road. Our plan is to paint the car in silver using the shadowlining technique. Many railroads such as MKT and ATSF did this to blend heavyweight cars in with newer streamliner cars. Recently, BC Rail had a super dome treated with shadowlining. It was so well done that you almost had to touch the side of the car to realize it wasn't really fluted.

Tim Stuy
Secretary - ELDCPS