The Railcar at the Depot

Railcar Ceremony

This is the group that was involved in restoration.	Ernest Schroeder with Sandy Joseph, Ernie was the track supervisor for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1950's.
This is the ceremony! Just for the fun of it! The Mayor Ruth Zerkle, and Sandy Joseph, CCPA President Stan Oliver, Ken Davis	Steve and Marsha Hess (County Commissioner --STEVE) and Sandy
Sandy Joseph (daughter of Marion W. Parks) who has been the contact person for the family was one of the speakers at the Railcar Ceremony.	Click here to see a short movie clip of her speech. You must have a broadband connection (Cable/DSL) to view this movie.

NX23 Railcar History

Six hundred X23 freight boxcars were ordered for four regions of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1912 at the Pennsylvania Railroad shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania, according to a partial number located underneath this railcar. These railcars were built in 1913.

During the Second World War there was a national shortage of cabooses. So the Pennsylvania Railroad converted seventy-five X23 boxcars to cabooses and added the letter "N" to the X23.

The assigned numbers to each railcar was started over and there are few records to indicate each railcar's original number and the newly 1943 assigned numbers.

The remodeling included two bay windows, ten round windows, one on each end and four on each side. Also, added were a • cooking/heating stove, a bunk, a booth, a coal bin, and a set of three lockers.

During the 1950s and 1960s this Urbana railcar was used as a Pennsylvania Railroad maintenance-of-way car on the route from Columbus, Ohio to Bradford, Ohio.
This car was photographed in the March 1964 issue of Model Railroad magazine on Miami Street, across from the grain elevator.

In the 1960s the Pennsylvania Railroad sold two maintenance-of¬way railcars without trucks to Marion W. Parks, a local building supply dealer, who used them on Miami Street as an office and for storage. They later were moved to West Court Street.

In 1999 the Marion W. Parks family donated these railcars to the Champaign County Preservation Alliance and it has been co¬sponsored by the Simon Kenton Corridor, the Simon Kenton Pathfinders, and the Champaign County Historical Society.

The two railcars were moved in 2000 to be restored for use on the Simon Kenton Trail. Meanwhile, the Village of North Lewisburg was building a bike trail on the abandoned Erie Lackawanna Railroad bed that had some missing bridges.

To replace their missing bridges the Champaign County Preservation Alliance and the Village of North Lewisburg purchased an entire flat bed railcar in Wooster.

After splitting the cost 50/50, the Village cut off the side of the railcar to use the railcar frame to replace the missing bridges. The CCPA had the seven-ton trucks (wheel assemblies) moved to the rail station on Miami Street after two local companies donated the ties and rails. Several volunteers and two contractors spiked the rails by hand using tie plates found along the Simon Kenton Trail.

The CCPA hired a Piqua Crane company to move the only salvageable railcar to its' new home. The other car could not be restored. The thirty thousand pound railcar took seven hours, seven employees, and two one hundred thousand pound cranes to move, including prep time so not to damage the new bikepath.

There are only four known NX23s left in the United States; one in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

This railcar support and moving could not have been complete without the complete support of the City of Urbana's administration, Fire, Police, Engineering, Street & Water Departments, City Development and the Champaign County Sheriffs Department.

Many donated hours/materials and purchased materials/services have restored this railcar. The sponsoring organizations would like to thank all of the people who helped on the train trips to raise money for the railcar restoration and a big thank you to all who supported this project over the years.
 

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