Piece of Tacoma rail history could go by the wayside
Owner of dining car seeking outside help to store, refurbish Northern Pacific relic
Owner of dining car seeking outside help to store, refurbish Northern Pacific relic
Dave Burns looks at a photo of a sister dining car inside Northern Pacific Dining Car No. 1663. Burns owns No. 1663, which was built around 1910 and is the lone survivor of a 15-car fleet. He’s trying to find a place to store it in the next three weeks. If he can’t find a new location, Burns says he’ll have to sell the rail car.LUI KIT WONG/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Dave Burns thinks he knows what goes through people’s minds when he starts talking about his dining car.
“People think I’ve got a screw loose,” he said last week. “But some people have Harleys. I have this.”
“This” is Northern Pacific Dining Car No. 1663, wrapped in gray tarps and standing next to Tacoma Rail tracks on the Tideflats. The 80-foot-long car is the sole survivor of a 15-car fleet built around 1910 by the Barney and Smith Car Co. of Dayton, Ohio.
It is the only piece of historic passenger-rail rolling stock in a town that was built by and for the Northern Pacific. Yet it is in danger of being lost to Tacoma unless Burns can finally get some help from those who share his hopes of seeing it restored and displayed. Tacoma Rail has told him they need the right of way he is leasing to allow the utility to improve tracks for an industrial customer.
That leaves him three weeks to find a new location, preferably indoors, to allow him to keep working on restoring the car. He’d love to attract some help to raise the money to hire experts and craftsmen to complete the work. That’s all part of his dream of having the restored car displayed somewhere in Tacoma.
