Equipment Information

Chicago Great Western 99 is a steel-sheathed, wood-body railroad business car. It was built for use by company officials as a rolling office and meeting space, mobile living quarters, and as a way to travel privately and entertain customers. Its open rear platform is typical of business cars and permitted a panoramic view from the rear of the train. Car 99 was built as Butte Copper Mining Company 2001, intended for use by William A. Clark, a company owner and a U.S. senator from Montana at the time. The car was sold to the Chicago Great Western (CGW) in 1926 and retired around 1965.

FUN FACT: Private business cars like CGW 99 were the equivalent of today’s private jets, a sign of “gilded age” wealth. William A. Clark, for whom this car was built, was notorious for bribing his way into the U.S. Senate in the days before senators were directly elected by constituents. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, said of Clark in 1907 – just two years after this car was built – that “he is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs.”

Chicago Great Western 99 Details

Builder: Pullman
Year Built: 1905
Seats: 10
Length: 83ft 1in
Width: 10ft
Height: 13ft 10in
Weight: 175000 lbs
Brakes: UC
Trucks: Pullman 2411
Description: Private car / ex-BCM 2001
Arrived: 1967
Condition: Complete / unrestored / not operational

Photo gallery

CGW 99 Ownership History

1905-1926 – Butte Copper Mining Company #2001
1926-1967 – Chicago Great Western #99
1967-present – Illinois Railway Museum, Union, IL

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