NRHS grant helps restore Monon business car
Published: March 7, 2014
FRENCH LICK, Ind. – With the help of a National Railway Historical Society National Heritage Grant, the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society has restored and repainted former Monon business car No. 2, Lynne.
Pullman built the car in 1924 as an open platform observation. It was acquired by the Monon in 1953 and rebuilt into a business car with a kitchen, dining room, drawing room, two compartments and a large observation room. It was renamed Lynne after Monon President Warren Brown’s two-year-old granddaughter Lynne Chambers. The car would visit French Lick at least once a year when the railroad ran specials to the Kentucky Derby in Louisville.
The car was retired in 1971 and sold to construction company Brown Inc. of Michigan City, Ind., which used it as an office. When the owner of the company died, the family donated the car to the society. The society spent $30,000 for brake and structural work to move the car to the Indiana Railway Museum at French Lick in December 2011.
At the museum interior and exterior work was done, cabinetry remanufactured, plumbing repaired, head end power work done, and furniture acquired. The Jasper Group, a custom furniture manufacturer in French Lick, donated furniture for the dining room. Society President Pete Pedigo was able to track down the original brass script logos that carried the cars name from Lynne’s family, and the family was invited to an inaugural celebration to mount the plates back on the car.
The car is now used on occasional excursion runs by the museum, which operates the French Lick Scenic Railway running passenger trains over 25 miles of track from French Lick to Jasper in southwest Indiana.
