Along with the other railway cars and the caboose in the museum is this 1942 Pullman Lightweight Sleeper Car, built in May of 1942 by Pullman-Standard for Pullman's own sleeper service. Each car was named, each name beginning with
American; a stencil on the car gives us this car's name,
American Navy. The number on the car, 906065, tells us that the car was retired by Pullman in August of 1968 and renumbered to the Union Pacific 900000 series in October of 1969. At one time Union Pacific owned 191 of these lightweight sleeper cars.
A total of 119 American-series sleeper cars were built in 1942 by Pullman-Standard, for Pullman's own sleeper service. Of those 119 cars, 60 were assigned to trains on the Overland Route (Chicago to San Francisco and Chicago to Los Angeles). The cars were assigned to the San Francisco Overland Limited, operated by C&NW-UP-SP, and Los Angeles Overland Limited, operated by C&NW-UP... American Navy (as UP 906065) was sold to Empire Builder Private Cars in 2000 for Eugene Hawk, moved to Spokane, Washington; still there as of August 2007; sold to Spokane Fire and Rail Museum in July 2009.
From Utah Rails
Once known as the
Hillyard Fire and Rail Museum, it seems now to be referred to simply as the
Hillyard Heritage Museum. Along the old Great Northern tracks on the eastern edge of Hillyard, it is an outdoor museum with indoor displays of railroad and firefighting memorabilia. To date the museum consists of two boxcars, a 1942 Pullman Sleeper Car, a really cool old and tiny diesel switching engine, an ex Great Northern caboose, X 176, and a LaFrance Pumper, circa 1960. The LaFrance doesn't seem to be on display as yet, probably awaiting restoration. There is mention that they also have, stashed away somewhere, a 1959 Pirsch fire engine.
The inside displays are within the caboose and the box cars, consisting of whatever odds and sods the museum has managed to salvage from the extinct railway and the equally extinct Hillyard Fire Department. The museum is operated by the
Hillyard Heritage Museum Society, which was established in 2004, its goal to "
collect and preserve information and artifacts of historic significance". The museum itself was established in 1995 by the Spokane Fire Station Museum.