Calling Fritz Klinke ! Here is the info I found on the Nomad. This seems like a credible account of the later history of the car. Let me know if it is accurate, especially compared to the info on the Fort Lewis College site.
I wish I knew who wrote this. There was no indication of the author on the document. The Fort Lewis College material is linked below.
Greg
Beyond a doubt the Nomad is the oldest private car in operation on any railroad.
on any railroad. While legends have been spun about it through the years, its service records and the findings of researchers leave the vital facts of its life well chronicled.
Rio Grande documents name Jackson & Sharp of Wilmington, Delaware, as the builders, and 1878 as the year of its completion. It was classified as a Horton Chair car and given No. 24, also the name "Fairplay."
It was rebuilt in 1886, then, as Business Car N, it became part of the D&RG executive office train consisting of three cars. Car P was the kitchen and provision car, Car B was a diner-sleeper, and N was a sleeper car.
D&RGW files recount that President William Howard Taft rode
this train between Montrose, Colorado, and the west portal of the
Gunnison water diversion tunnel to deliver a speech at the
tunnel's dedication on September 23, l9O9.
An often-repeated story says that Ulysses S. Grant rode the
car "on the first train into Leadville." Rio Grande tracks
reached Leadville in l88O; so it is likely true, although Grant's
second term as president had ended three years earlier.
The Nomad has been described as "General William Jackson
Palmer's personal private car." There is every reason to believe
and no cause to doubt that the railroad's founder-president rode
the car, and often. But General Palmer was not ostentatious and
reflections of his character made it appear unlikely that he ever
condoned a luxury car for himself.
In l9l2 the car was renumbered B-2. In l9l7 its interior
was remodeled at the Burnham Shops and its number was changed to
B-3. As with the other business cars, its wheels were changed
from 28-inch to 26-inch in l93O.
Stories have the car at the St. Louis World's Fair in l9O4,
the San Francisco World's Fair in l9l5, and Chicago Century of
Progress Exposition in l933.
Railroad records and photos prove that the car was shipped
east for exhibit at the Chicago Rai1road Fair in l948-49 and that
for this occasion it was named General William J. Palmer.
Hopes for the little car, and of most narrow gauge rolling
stock, flickered low in l95O. Unwanted by its railroad, the B-3
was stored outdoors at Alamosa. On July lO a D&RGW Mechanical
Department order No. 2384 affecting the B-1 and the B-3 read:
"These cars, which were built in l88O and l878
respectively, are in worn out condition. As they
are no longer required, they should be retired and
dismantled or otherwise disposed of."
It turned out to be "otherwise" because of a man from
Franklin, Ohio--Lad G. Arend--who came west with unusua1 ideas
for a home. He paid $1,5OO for the B-3 at Alamosa and arranged
for its removal to Durango, thinking he would place it on a
vacant lot and live in it,
On July 8, 1951 the B-3 made what looked like its last run.
It rolled across Cumbres Pass coupled into freight train No. 441.
But before Arend could follow through, his doctor told him
Durango's 6,52O foot elevation would be bad for his health.
Hugh C. Burleigh, D&RGW carman in Durango, paid Arend $l,lOO
for the car. Burleigh moved it to a trailer park he rented a
short distance west of town, and there the B-3 stood on the south
side of U.S. Highway 160 from l951 to l957.
In the latter year a free-flowing party in a Dallas, Texas,
hotel played a part in the destiny of the B-3. The party thrower
was Ted White or Albuquerque, New Mexico, youthful oilman and financial
plunger. Over drinks, he confided with his friend Harold B. Wood
of Santa Fe, New Mexico, that he was jaded with such humdrums as planes
and yachts and wanted something more exotic to play around with
and in. Wood asked if he had ever thought of a private railroad
car. White reckoned that might be just the thing.
Wood wasn't exercising his hotel-running experience right
then, so he accepted White's assignment to go hunting for a
private car. Wood knew Durango and the narrow gauge, and headed
for southwest Co1orado. to look around. He scouted the Durango
and Silverton rai1 yards, then spotted the B-3 standing beside
the highway in Burleigh's trai1er court.
It didn't take Wood and Burleigh long to get together on a
price oí $3,OO0. Wood had the car moved back to the rails in the
Durango yards and set on a siding where he could work on it.
During the first move on the rai1s, the B-3 broke loose from an
engine pulling it around the sharply dipped balloon track west of
the depot. There were some frantic moments, as the car ran wild
down the 3 percent grade with Wood debating whether to jump or
just hang on, and the brakeman, with no brakes to use, whistling
through his teeth to stop motor traffic on the highway. The car
raced across the crossing and up the other side of the dip; then
back it came, brakeman whistling and Wood clutching the railing.
On the next sashay, the skillful engineer on the locomotive
made a flying coup1ing and all was well.
An interior decorator, Robert K1ein, was hired to re-do the
inside of the car. Wood and his wife lived in a rented house
trai1er in Durango for over three months. A propane tank was
installed underneath the car to provide fuel for a new refrigerator
and kitchen ranqe as we1l as to replace the original German Pintsch
gas illuminating system, but the old fixtures were retained. Wood
had the exterior painted Tuscan red over the old yellow-orange.
He worked with his hands and White's credit to make it worthy of
their planned joint ownership.
Wood and White gave the car the name Nomad, which they dis-
covered on a drawing of a standard gauge D&RGW private car of the
early 1900's, and dug up some of the history and many of the
legends or its three score years and ten. Names of personages
who had or might have ridden the car were emblazoned on publicity
material; for thetwo had conceived ideas of renting the Car to
the day's notables for $5OO a trip.
As the car neared Wood's goal of elegance, bills were stacked
high on his desk in the trailer. Finally, after receiving no
cash from White in recent weeks and facing demands for immediate
payment of $5,5OO, Wood desperately called his partner.
"He told me he was down on his financia1 deals, and I'd have
to see it through myself," Wood recounted later. "I had myself a
private car and a mountain-sized debt." Wood began looking for help.
News of the car and its owners' plight reached and intrigued
a Pueblo, Colorado couple, Mr. and Mrs. William M. White, who were
adequately girded financially and imbued culturally for possession
of a private railroad car.
White, "financier-industrialist president of the First National
Bank of Durango and four other Colorado banks bought the Nomad for
"about $5,OOO." Then he and his wife, Helen, made the car a
continuing project.
In their travels--and they ranged afar--the Whites sought and
bought furnishings of the Victorian age, carefully chosen to fit
the diminutive dimensions of the narrow gauge. Mrs. White recalls
that "we carried a scale drawing with us so we could visualize
everything in its place."
Antique chairs, period silver service, cut glass and original
art were shipped to Durango and placed aboard the car. Old photos
provided the patterns for a solid brass railing for the observation
platform.
NOMAD in ornate lettering was cast in metal for the sides.
Again the outside was painted, this time deep rich Pullman green.
One concession to modern luxury--an air conditioning plant--was
installed unobtrusively, its generator run by propane gas from the
tank underneath.
The Nomad as the Whites reglorified it was in true sense unique.
Thenceforth, coupled onto The Silverton Train, and even standing
on the fenced-in spur pfovided for it in the Durango railroad
yards, eyes and cameras were on it.
To a longer narrative belongs the story behind the Whites'
relinquishment of the Nomad in 1962. In brief, the railroad still
was seeking abandonment or the narrow gauge in 196O. The Whites,
envisioning the preservation or the line by a non-profit historical
foundation, offered to buy the Silverton Branch and all the equip-
ment. Within a few weeks dissension among opposing interests
built up to such bitterness that the Whites withdrew from the rail-
road scene and offered the Nomad for sale in evidence of their
complete severance from the controversy.
The Nomad was bought by affluent, rail-minded Ra1ph Atlass,
who recently had come to Durango from Chicago to buy and run a radio
station. The car sold for $25,OOO, the sum the Whites' accounts
showed they themselves had put into it.
The Atlass family or four used the car frequently for excursion
parties and special guests leaving the furnishing and decor unchanged
except by wear.
By common knowledge, Atlass wasn't happy with Durango. When
in l964 he announced he was selling his radio station and departing,
he told others he would not leave the Nomad behind. On March 6 he
left town. Before the end or the month word came from friends: he
had sold the Nomad to Elliott Donnelley, Chicago publishing and print-
ing executive and probably America's No. l private collector of
historic railroad equipment.
On April 28 Donnelley came to Durango to try out his newest
acquisition and made an occasion of it. He chartered a special
train consisting of Engine No. 478, a caboose, the business car
General William Jackson Palmer and, on the rear, the Nomad, for a
trip to Farmington, New Mexico, and back. Among his guests were railroad
officials from Denver and Durango, and personal friends.
Donnelley told his guests he had paid $15,OOO for the Nomad
and would take it either to the Black Hills Central Railroad in
South Dakota, a sightseeing excursion 1ine in which he had interest
or to his own private rail domain at Lake Forest, Illinois.
By that evening the Rio Grande railroaders aboard had con-
vinced him he should leave his car in Durango for the time being.
He said he would, "for the next year or two at 1east."
In June an exchange of correspondence between the writer of
this account and Elliott Donnelley produced an amazing result. A
letter, patently aimed at solidifying Donnelley's ideas of keeping
the Nomad at Durango, mentioned the Cinco Animas group and how it
had acquired the private car B-2, renamed Cinco Animas. Then,
appealing to his renowned love of railroad g1orification, this
possibility was painted for him: By using his Nomad and chartering
both the Cinco Animas and the Genera1 William Jackson Palmer, he
could put together his own three-car "varnish" train, re-creating
the fabled "Presidentia1 Special" of General Palmer's pioneer
narrow gauge empire.
Donnelley's reply stunned all of the five souls: How would
they like to add another member, Elliott Donnelley, to the corpora-
tion, and he would "throw in" the Nomad as his contribution ?
Before that day's sunset, documents were on their way to
Chicago. Three days later they were back in Durango, signed.
Donnelley became the sixth director-member of Cinco Animas, and
Cinco Animas possessed two fabulous private cars. Nomad, leased
to the Rio Grande Railroad, now was available for public charter
along with the Cinco Animas and General William Jackson Palmer.
Should the corporation change from Cinco Animas to Seis
Animas now that it had added a new soul ? The members decided no;
the original name looked and sounded better.
On June 26, l964, the Durango Herald front-paged the story
under the three-column headline:
NOMAD, ELEGANT PRIVATE
CAR, TO STAY IN DURANGO
