A TRAIN SET FOR CHRISTMAS IN JULY.

Burlington Route's Mark Twain Zephyr set has been handed down from one dinner train or excursion operator to another, mostly to no effect (other than the stripping of the furniture and the scrapping of the prime mover.)  The Budd patent shot-welded stainless steel coaches are the closest thing on rails to indestructible, though, and an excursion railroad called Wisconsin and Great Northern, which run a rolling bed and breakfast train during tourist season, have purchased the train and are moving it north for repairs.  It will take an augmented form in Wisconsin, with shovel nosed power unit 9903 Injun Joe (think of how they say "engine" in the Ozarks), full baggage car Becky Thatcher, dinette coach Huckleberry Finn, and coach-parlor observation Tom Sawyer being joined by 1938 dinette coach Effie Dean (ordered by Burlington to replace a straight coach in the 9900 Pioneer Zephyr set; that coach went from one Zephyr to another but was back in the 9900 set at the time that train went to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, where there was no room in the inn for a four car train.)  I have found no references to that car running on Burlington as Effie Dean.

On Wisconsin and Great Northern, the Mark Twain Zephyr will feature an older General Motors 600 horsepower diesel engine borrowed from an SW600 switch engine in Injun Joe; Becky Thatcher will become a rolling museum gallery to familiarize visitors with the Zephyr fleet; Huckleberry Finn will become a full-length dining car "with the interior modeled after the 1936 Denver Zephyr" (Wisconsin and Great Northern primarily operating dinner trains to go with that rolling bed and breakfast);  Effie Dean will become a tavern lounge (useful if there are multiple seatings in the dining car, what happens if it takes on aspects of a Tip Top Tap or a northwoods supper club?) and first class seating will be on offer in the tail end of Tom Sawyer.

Let's hope this project works.  After all the bad weird things that have taken place so far this year, another Zephyr that could still show today's high speed trains how it's done entertaining passengers would be a good weird thing.