| Built in 1925 by Pressed Steel Car Company. The following is from a display on the car: "A combine (short for combination) provides both passenger seating and space for baggage or express freight. The B&LE operated a 160-mile north-south route between Bessemer (near Pittsburgh) and Erie, Pennsylvania. Most of B&LEs traffic was ore, steel and heavy freight for its owner, U.S. Steel, with only limited passenger service. B&LE had less than two dozen modern steel cars in its passenger fleet. Combine 25 was one of the last two cars still in service when B&LE ended passenger operations in the late 1950s. The car was sold to the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern in 1960, which removed most of its seats and baggage racks and used it as a tool car for its wreck train. EJ&E donated the car to IRM in 1984. Restoration began in 1986, and the car returned to service at IRM in 1996." |