TTM site

Texas Transportation Museum
11731 Wetmore Road, San Antonio TX 78247
(210) 490-3554

The Longhorn & Western Railroad

Railroad Cars

The Longhorn and Western railroad has two railroad cars. Both were built by the Pullman Car Company. Both served a different purpose. One, the McKeever, was for passengers. It would be converted at night from regular seating to sleeping berths. It's very easy to think about the movie Some Like It Hot," with Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. The other car, the Santa Fe 404, is a business car and was used by administrative personnel.

Breaking News

We are holding a massive fundraising campaign
to fully restore both the McKeever and the 404.

We need to raise $150,000.00 !!!

For more information, click

McKeever / 404 Restoration

The McKeever

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge)

The museum's Pullman car, called the McKeever, is a 12 Section / 1 Drawing Room Sleeping car. It entered service with the Pullman Pool on June 26, 1924. It is one of 63 such cars built between June and August of that year. It was rebuilt in 1935 when air conditioning was added. Until 1948 it operated mainly on the New York Central and the Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad. Some museum visitors have told us about trips on the McKeever between San Antonio and Grand Central Station, New York. After 1948, the car was operated solely by the MKT RR until 1965 when the KATY ceased passenger service.

All Pullman cars, until 1948, were owned by the Pullman company itself. They were leased to operating railroads and serviced and staffed by the Pullman Company. The Pullman Company "monopoly" was broken up in 1948 and its cars were spread out among all the different railroads individually. The McKeever was allocated to the MKT. Its records show the McKeever as one of the nine Pullmans it owned in 1954. The others were the Kimbell, the McCaysville, the Lake Jessie, the McCumber, the McLeod, the McCallsburg, the McInnes and the Sunnyside. The McKeever is 82 feet, 11 inches long externally, with an interior passenger area 73 feet, 10 inches long. It hold 55 passengers and has both a men's and women's toilet area, one at each end of the car, for the sake of propriety, no doubt. The men's area is larger, and is also designated as the smoking room. The car has twelve sections, with upper and lower sleeping berths, plus an open drawing room area.

As an old 'heavy weight' car in a streamlined age, the McKeever ended its service days as a regular passenger car on branch line service. One of the museum's charter members, Dr. Bill Boyd, acquired the car in 1966, when the MKT quit the passenger business altogether. He had it transported to his place on Lake Placid, near Seguin, Texas. There is was used as a summer house by his family, especially his two daughters, who would have sleep overs in it with their friends. The car stayed behind when the property was sold and the car sank further and further into disrepair. It even was flooded out by the lake at one point. A subsequent owner of the land, Dr. John Worsham, donated the car to the museum in 1983. He also paid for the not inconsiderable expense of moving it from Seguin to the museum.

Since its arrival at the museum, it has been the subject of much restoration work. Its roof and sides have been painted more than once, and most of the windows have been repaired or replaced. In addition, most of the seats have been re-upholstered. Much of the work was done by a two person team of Frank Miller and Pete Shavney. When Frank passed away, Pete has kept going and has been recently joined by a new volunteer, Bob, who has brought a whole new vitality and sense of energy to the project.

The car, along with the adjacent 404 business car, needs to be repainted. This is a huge task in and of itself which is further complicated by the inordinate cost of the best paint for the job, which runs to about $90.00 a gallon !!!

Santa Fe Business Car 404

The '404' is a 60 foot long, 60 ton, Business Car. It is one of 17 such cars built by the Pullman Company on plan 4977, and was delivered to the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad on January 26, 1926. It was assigned to the Superintendent of AT & SF's Eastern Lines, Eastern Division whose headquarters were located in the second floor of the depot at Emporia, Kansas. The AT & SF, Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, is now part of the BNSF, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

The 404 arrived at the museum on August 15th, 1979. It was 75% donated to the museum by board member Neil Boldrick. This is a common practice among donors. It allows them to have a say in the care and possible disposition of their gift. Neil also paid 75% of the usual exorbitant cost to transport any railroad equipment to the museum, as we have never managed to get a link to the mainline so tantalizingly close on the other side of Wetmore Road. After the old depot from Converse, it was one of the museum's first most significant acquisitions. The McKeever did not arrive until four years later.

The car is in pretty good condition and is still be capable of being moved as part of a train. Unfortunately, because our static display is facing in the "wrong" direction, it is pretty much stuck in place. The car has been the recipient of a lot of care and attention. The rust you can see under the west end windows actually came from the inside, from accumulated water from leaking windows. All the car's windows are in the process of being repaired or replaced and we hope at that time to cut out the affected area, weld in new steel and then repaint the car. All of this takes time, of course, not to mention fantastic amounts of money. As we are an all volunteer organization entirely dependant on revenue from visitors - we don't get any state or local government funding, and have yet to receive any grants from any charitable foundation - progress is somewhat slow. But progress is indeed being made and the work is coming along.

Santa Fe Business Car 401 has not been quite so lucky. It is privately owned and stuck in Seguin. The spur tack that once served the siding is long gone, with a business located where the tracks used to run, although the rails set into the road are still there. The car is all but abandoned and was used, like so much derelict railroad equipment, by vagrants as sleeping quarters. The car is absolutely trashed on the interior, with evidence of fires and casual vandalism. The City of Seguin is keen to rid itself of this eye sore so the car's days are probably numbered. The site itself was significantly improved and the car sealed. It was offered to the museum but we were obliged to decline, as we do not have the money to move it and have no need for still more "ugly duckling" railroad junk. We are not sure if it has sufficient structural integrity to survive a move. If the car is destroyed, we do hope to acquire one or two pieces of equipment and fittings from it.

For more information about the 404 and other series 400 business cars, click

400 Series Business cars

For information about our fundraising campaign for the restoration of the McKeever and the 404, click

McKeever / 404 Restoration

More TTM & L&W web site pages

•TTM Home Page•
•Hours of Operation & Location•

•Locomotives•
•Railroad Carriages;
•Cabooses•
•The Depot•
•Motor Cars•
•Miscellaneous L&W items•