Soo/Milwaukee Road X-5001
Caboose/Business Car
This caboose was built in 1929 at the Milwaukee Road shops, in Milwaukee. It was originally numbered MILW 01612, as part of an order for 15 drovers cars. They were the first steel cupola cabooses built by the Milwaukee.
The car was rebuilt in the 70's, first as an instruction car, then as an office car and renumbered X-5001. As the Lines West Superintendent's car, X-5001 traveled the electrified divisions of the Milwaukee's Pacific Extension between Montana and the West Coast.
Milwaukee's 1977 bankruptcy and abandonment of the Lines West brought X-5001 back East by 1980. When the Soo Line acquired the Milwaukee Road in 1986, they repainted it red, but kept it as an office car & the X-5001 number.
In 2001 the Milwaukee Road Historical Assoc. acquired X-5001 from the Canadian Pacific Railway and donated it to the Illinois Railway Museum.
Year Built: 1929
Length: 41 ft
Empty Weight: 47,900 lbs
Height: 14 ft
Courtesy hmdb.org
