Parked Beautifully: Ornate Train Car Harkens Back to Bygone Travel Era

History Off the Beaten Path

No detail was spared in the early 20th century Pullman luxury train cars, including the artistically conveyed trey ceiling with brass lighting fixtures and arched transoms. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

While picking up a takeout order from the Holiday Inn café in West Yellowstone, Montana last summer, I was taken aback. Situated in front of the hotel is a historic Pullman train car. I ascended the metal platform stairs and entered.

A true back-in-time experience awaited. And, as I am already exceptionally enamored with trains and train travel, this historical treasure piqued my sensibilities.

I learned from a framed display in the train car that it was a Pullman and part of Union Pacific‘s Oregon Short Line [OSL] of 1903. George Pullman in the mid-19th century developed luxury train cars, sometimes referred to as “palace cars.”

Staterooms were well apportioned with comfortable bedding, desks, closets, steam heat, electric lights, and more—everything to make the train traveler's experience a positive one. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

How the 85-foot train car became a grand fixture in front of the Holiday Inn began in the early 1900s, with OSL Chairman Edward Henry Harriman and other notable capitalists of the day using the extravagantly-outfitted train cars to travel for work and pleasure. “[Travelers] ... took great pride in their Palace Cars, which provided luxurious and sophisticated traveling unparalleled in today’s society,” cited information that is printed, framed, and hung in the train car for visitors.

The seating cars included comfortable velvet-covered upholstery set against solid wood paneling and a large window for experiencing the view. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

When the OSL car was completed in 1903, the cost was around $16,500, and it boasted 36 steel wheels, gas and electric lights, steam heat, and a wide observation platform.

More than a century later, the car’s Honduran mahogany paneling still gleams. Ornately carved and richly stained woods, beveled glass in arched transoms, and decorative mirrors enhance the ambience. Door handles, locks, pulls, and lighting fixtures are made of lavishly designed brass. Tray ceilings feature beaded brass detailing. Entry gates are adorned with scrollwork. Even the interior dressing room closets sport brass rods and hand-carved wooden storage compartments. Lush velvet covers chairs, sofas, and passenger bench seating.

The seating cars included comfortable velvet-covered upholstery set against solid wood paneling and a large window for experiencing the view. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

Clyde Seely, author of “Opportunity Knocked: How an Idaho Farm Boy Became a Successful Businessman and Advocate of West Yellowstone, Montana” and writer of the train car’s history, explains:

“Harriman recognized the gold mine of train travel. He and some executives sat around a table in Mammoth Hot Springs [at Yellowstone’s north entrance], after arriving by stagecoach, which was the only way to travel to West Yellowstone prior to the railroad line, and said, ‘Let’s build it [the railroad].’”

Passenger travel began in 1908.

The OSL car would have traveled the rails and stopped at the Union Pacific Train Depot, one of the oldest existing buildings in West Yellowstone and currently the Museum of the Yellowstone.

Attention to detail on the opulent "palace car," currently open to the public in West Yellowstone, Mont., extended to the dressing room, with brass rods and knobs and hand-carved wooden storage compartments. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

Retirement

After the train car was retired in the early 1930s, it was presented as a gift to a retiring railroad superintendent. The car was taken to a lot on the edge of town, removed of its wheels, and placed on a foundation. There it sat—until Seely became involved.

As a teenager in the late 1950s, Seely learned his employers, owners of Three Bear Lodge and Restaurant in West Yellowstone, had purchased the train car. He helped them retrofit it for sleeping quarters.

Even though the train car sat unused for decades, it was in remarkable shape, explained Seely. Primarily the exterior needed work, but all original furniture, lighting fixtures, brass, and more remained intact.

Adornments decorate even the smallest interior feature, like these brass door handles. (Courtesy of Deena Bouknight)

In 1970, Seely and his wife bought Three Bear and the train car. “My family and I lived in the car while our house was being built. The four children slept in the staterooms and my wife and I slept in the car’s main observation room. The kids loved it! We tried to keep it as much in its original state as possible.”

Then Seely decided to build the Holiday Inn. His first thought was to make the train car the front-and-center entryway draw. The hotel’s restaurant was called The Oregon Short Line. “My intention was always to spotlight the train car.”

Seely sold the hotel in 2009 and, “sadly,” the train along with it, but said owning the train car and understanding its history was “amazing to be a part of. It’s wonderful for people to walk through and experience what it was like to travel in luxury during the early days of the railway.”

While the Great Depression, World War II, automobiles, and a 7.3 earthquake in 1959 eventually halted passenger train service to West Yellowstone, the best part about this off-the-beaten-path discovery is that it is free and accessible. No one dispenses tickets or asserts boundaries on how to peruse the OSL car.

One can simply step in, and step way back, to a train travel era much removed from the practical experience modern life provides today.