Cheyenne receives passenger cars, caboose from UP for tourism project

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The City of Cheyenne has accepted a donation from Union Pacific of  three passenger cars and a caboose for the city’s planned 15th Street Railroad Experience tourism project, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports.

Two of the cars — a former Southern Pacific heavyweight observation car later used in maintenance-of-way service and a 1959 steel cupola caboose — had previously been mentioned when the city received a $618,400 federal grant for their restoration as part of the tourism project [see “Federal grant will help fund renovation …,” Trains News Wire, June 16, 2022]. That grant will also help pay for work to a steam locomotive already on display in a city park, UP 4-6-0 No. 1242, built in 1890 by the Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works of Patterson, N.J. It is to be relocated from its current home in Lions Park, have asbestos removed, and undergo cosmetic restoration.

But the new announcement adds two additional cars, a 1930 dining car and another diner.

City Engineer Tom Cobb told the Tribune Eagle that the city’s hope is to move the cars to 15th street and renovate them on site, to generate some interest in the project, but it has yet to be determined if that is feasible. Mayor Tom Collins said the hope is the cars can find an active use, such as restaurant seating or as a location for wine tasting.

The planned project will place the cars near Cheyenne’s former UP depot and utilize a pump house built by the railroad in 1892, and feature dining and retail facilities. It could eventually expand to include a connection from the depot to UP’s Cheyenne roundhouse [see “Cheyenne, Wyo., makes plans for rail-oriented tourist project,” News Wire, Oct. 25, 2021].