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OGDEN — Train buffs have a new engine to admire at the Utah State Railroad Museum while a dilapidated boxcar gifted from France after World War II is in Wyoming undergoing rehabilitation.
"I think this is the best it's looked since the '60s," Hope Eggett, curator of Museums at Union Station, said Friday at the public unveiling of the old Western Pacific Railroad GP35 electric diesel engine. It becomes the 54th train railroad car in the railroad museum at Union Station in Ogden.
Ogden train enthusiasts, meanwhile, are wondering about the future of several other distinctive cars in the museum collection, now sitting exposed to the elements on the grounds of city-owned Business Depot Ogden awaiting attention. They include a Moon Glow car, built in the post-World War II era as part of General Motors' so-called Train of Tomorrow, according to Utah Rails, an online compendium of Utah railroad information.
"They really should be moved (to Union Station) so they don't end up out of sight, out of mind," said Steve Jones, a vocal train and Union Station advocate.
Friday's low-key ceremony served to publicly introduce the GP35 engine — produced in La Grange, Illinois, in 1963 — to the state rail museum collection. It originally served Utah and the western United States for around 20 years as part of fleet of the now-defunct Western Pacific Railroad, then served in Arkansas, among other places, before it was donated in 2022 to the Utah museum.
Derrick Klarr, who helped restore the engine to its original look as a Western Pacific train, said trains from other rail companies that have served Utah are represented at the museum. However, a train from Western Pacific, acquired by Union Pacific in 1982, wasn't in the collection, part of the allure of the GP35 train, which is still operable. "This is one piece they lacked over the years," he said.
Klarr works for the Utah Transit Authority, a partner in efforts to restore the engine to its original look, but labored on the GP35 as a volunteer along with about a dozen others associated with the Promontory Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.
Volunteer work and donations helped convert the GP35 train to its original look while UTA allowed use of its painting facilities. The railroad museum pitched in around $8,000.
What of the Merci, Moon Glow, Saltair and Bamberger cars?
Simultaneously, long overdue restoration work is moving ahead on the Merci boxcar, shipped last week from the Ogden museum to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where the $100,000 or so effort is to occur. The blue, wooden boxcar was a gift from France after World War II, a way of saying thanks for U.S. help in post-war recovery efforts. Each U.S. state received one and Utah's has sat exposed to the elements, slowly deteriorating.
Christy McBride, manager of Ogden's Arts, Culture and Events Division, said the Merci effort should take 12 to 18 months. The car, once restored, is to be shown in a covered exhibition area, though city leaders are still working on the plans.
As for a handful of cars sitting on an unused track section inside Business Depot Ogden, the industrial park owned by the city of Ogden, no firm plans are in the works. "Those are kind of on a holding pattern," McBride said.
The cars include a Moon Glow car, which featured a viewing dome in its top that was designed to renew interest in passenger rail service as numbers of riders waned, Eggett said. There are two Saltair train cars, used to haul passengers on a line that traveled to excursion areas that once dotted the shores of the Great Salt Lake near Salt Lake City. There's also a Bamberger car, used in a passenger trolley system that connected Ogden and Salt Lake City.
Getting funds to cover restoration is the key sticking point. "We would love to have all the money in the world to restore them," McBride said.
Eggett said construction of some sort of enclosed facility to house the four cars has been broached as part of plans to upgrade Union Station and redevelop the land around it. That would at least get the four cars out of the elements while funds are secured to rehab them.
As they rust, deteriorate and get more graffiti, though, Jones worries. "Those are very unique and once they're gone, they're gone," he said.
