The St. Johns Depot and Rotary Park, which currently houses four historic railcars, can expect to see some changes early next week.
Namely, the loss of two of its cars.
St. Johns has four railcars: the Sault Ste. Marie sleeper car and mail car, the Ann Arbor boxcar and a lone caboose.
The caboose, according to City Manager Todd Campbell, is the only railcar of the four that traveled through the St. Johns depot while it was in operation.
The city will spend $100,000 collected from grant programs and donations to restore the caboose and establish it as a permanent resident of the depot.
St. Johns Director of Public Works Jordan Whitford said the exterior of the caboose is the priority of restoration.
“The exterior is very weather-checked,” Whitford said. “The scope of the project is going to be removing the outer shell, exposing the substructure, determining what substructure improvements are necessary, and then re-skinning the caboose with new wood.”
Whitford said the cupola on the roof of the railcar will also be replaced, and the whole structure will receive a new coat of paint.
“It’ll be, to our best knowledge based on the condition that it’s in now, what it was when it was operational,” he said.
The Ann Arbor boxcar was purchased by Railmark, a railroad restoration organization, and will be removed from the depot following the city’s annual Mint Festival, which takes place Aug. 7–9.
Campbell said the destination for the Ann Arbor boxcar has not been determined yet, nor has the date of removal.
The Sault Ste. Marie railcars, however, are too damaged to restore. Both the sleeper car and the mail car have deteriorated due to decades of adverse weather, vandalism and general structural decay.
“Unfortunately, the Sault Ste. Marie car has a wood substructure, and as you know with wood in these lovely Michigan winters, it’s not very forgiving,” Whitford said. “The structure itself, the substructure, is just unsafe. It’s just rotted out beyond what reasonable repairs could be made.”
The Sault Ste. Marie railcars will be taken apart by preservation specialists, and historically significant pieces from the sleeper car will be used to restore the Duluth, a sister sleeper car preserved at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in Wisconsin.
“It’s an opportunity for at least some of the cars to live on,” Campbell said. “So, people can enjoy them, and again, it’s an opportunity for them to continue to be viable and be part of some exhibits.”
Pieces of the railcars that are not used to repair the Duluth but are able to be preserved may end up back in St. Johns, according to Campbell, but no plans have been made yet.
The City of St. Johns is inviting residents to visit the depot before the Sault Ste. Marie railcars are removed Monday, July 13.