Private car ‘Pawnee’
Illinois Railway Museum
UNION, Ill. – The Illinois Railway Museum has acquired the historic Pullman private car Pawnee. The car was built in 1930 and is the second-to-last traditional heavyweight private car built by the Pullman Co. of Chicago. The museum is raising funds to cover the acquisition and transportation of this car to the museum grounds, as well as the long-term housing and restoration of the car.
The Pawnee was built for Harry Payne Bingham, a financier, sportsman, and philanthropist. Bingham’s father was the president of Standard Tool Co. in Ohio. His maternal grandfather was Henry Payne, U.S. Senator from Ohio between 1885 and 1891, while his paternal grandfather was William Bingham, president of the Cleveland Iron Co. Harry Bingham lived in New York City and was an acquaintance of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler.
Bingham ordered the Pawnee from Pullman for deluxe private transportation between New York City and Palm Beach, Fla. Later, after it was sold by the Bingham family, the car was refurbished by Pullman as Western Union Telegraph Co. No. 100.
The Pawnee is in excellent and largely original condition. The museum intends to restore and operate the car, which arrived on its own wheels Dec. 12, on its demonstration railroad.
For more information, or to make a donation, go to www.irm.org.
George Pins,
Western Union is not long gone, they’re still in business, they just transitioned into new services that’s all, like wire transfers of money, etc.
Penelope Vinson,
What you state about museums supposed to be restoring artifacts to their period appearance goes against the best practices of the museum industry. What museums do, and not just RR museums is restore items to the best of their ability with cost and long term survival of the artifact in mind, in some instances this requires changes to the original fabric. As for the FRA, I don’t believe it’s their rules that require the use of rubber diaphragms as much as it is less expensive to maintain and use for cash strapped museums and tourist lines.
“on its demonstration railroad.” ???
Congratulations to the Illinois Railway Museum for the valuable acquisition of one of the last heavyweight passenger cars built by Pullman.
I sincerely hope the ‘Pawnee’ will be restored with authentic diaphragms similar to the originals it was built with. Rubber tube diaphragms simply do not look right on vintage railway passenger cars. Museums are suppose to restore artifacts to their period appearance.
The FRA should stop breaking fabled railway traditions such as replacing oscillating headlights with flashing ditch lights and requiring rubber diaphragms in place of sprung canvassed diaphragms with metal face plates and ribbing.
Western Union is long gone (although today’s “texting” seems like a contemporary version of a WU telegram), so I think it would be interesting to know the “chain of custody” from WU to IRM. The car is now lettered RPCX, which is a selling agent for such items, I believe.