Greetings family, friends, neighbors and train buddys. Today's snippet, "The Wind Splitter"' takes a look back over a century at a unique rail car that would have seemed more at home under the sea than in the Nevada desert....Bill
Embedded Files
Historic Snippets
THE WIND SPLITTER
Surprised motorists on Highway 395 between Carson City and Minden, would stop to take a second look at the large red aerodynamic rail car with the curved roof, rounded rear end, porthole windows, and distinctive knife-edge “Wind Splitter” front end. Seemingly more at home in a Jules Verne underseas novel than in the Nevada desert, Virginia and Truckee Railway’s McKeen Motor Car 22 was making one of it’s daily passenger runs.
Built in 1910 by the McKeen motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska, the three hundred and forty ton, steel, gasoline powered car had a seating capacity of eighty four in the opulent paneled interior. Concerns for the profitability of the branch line led the V&T to purchase the self propelled seventy foot long car for twenty two thousand dollars, far less expensive and more efficient than operating a traditional train pulled by a steam locomotive. The McKeen run from Minden was extended to Reno in later years, however declining ridership eventually forced the railroad to suspend usage of the car in 1929 and convert it to a Railway Post Office and handler for the Railway Express Agency. After thirty five years of service in 1945, and logging more than a half million miles, Motor Car 22 was officially retired. With the engine and trucks removed, the unique body shell served as attention getting “Denny’s Diner” (not THAT Denny’s) in Carson City until 1955 when it was sold to Al’s Plumbing Supply and served four years as offices and storage space.
Recognizing the historic significance of the old motor car, the proprietor of Al’s donated it to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in 1996 where the mechanical components, scrapped years earlier, were re-fabricated, a Caterpillar diesel engine installed replacing the original combustion engine, and the motor car carefully restored. One hundred years to the day it arrived in Carson City from Omaha for service on the V&T, McKeen Motor Car 22, the Wind Splitter, made it’s debut at the museum where it operates on holidays and special occasions, and has been designated as a National Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
-Bill 10/25
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse