It took weeks of planning and measuring, but after a fleet of tow trucks spent hours pulling it, a piece of locomotive history arrived at its new home in western Massachusetts.
About four months ago, the Chester Foundation finally got their hands on something they had long sought for the Chester Railway Station & Museum – a dining car.
Not just any dining car, either, but an iconic piece that was once part of Bernie’s Dining Depot in Chicopee.
The donated 85-foot car is just over 80-years-old and according to Chester Foundation President David Pierce, it’s the perfect fit for the museum.
However, getting it there was easier said than done.
“This is an attempt to get an 85-foot car around these sharp corners and under this fairly low underpass,” he told WAMC as he and about two dozen spectators looked on Monday, Dec. 22, witnessing the move in progress. “It's been measured quite a bit by the experts. I'm not the boss of this project, I'm just a rubbernecker like a lot of these other people, but we have a pretty good crowd here.”
For @wamcradio.bsky.social : I'm in Chester, Mass. this morning where, after a month of planning, moving and going back to the drawing board, crews are getting ready to move the latest addition to the Chester Railway Station & Museum through the narrowest tunnel you ever did see
— JPaleoWAMCNews (@jpaleolo.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T17:00:41.898Z
It was something of a spectacle in the Hilltown of 1,200. After the converted Pullman coach first made it to town in late-November, it had to cross one final Rubicon this week – or rather, go under it.
Before the museum was a sharp turn and narrow underpass on Lower Prospect Street. It was the only way to get the car past the railway tracks that go through the town, and the execution meant coordination with multiple tow truck crews.
It also meant cutting several residents off from town for a few hours, what with the underpass connecting several homes to the town's center. However, many got a front-row seat to history arriving, including lifelong resident Debra Trudeau.
Overlooking the scene in her warm SUV, she as well as others were curious whether the car would actually fit.
“That's what everybody in town is wondering - that corner. They're all saying they've had hours of measuring, but they still have doubts,” Trudeau told WAMC. “So, it'll be very interesting. It'll be a mess if it doesn't fit.”
The stakes were somewhat high, but the mood was jovial as neighbors joked and chatted with one another.
Pierce told WAMC cutting the car in half was a possibility at one point, but going into Monday, the math looked good. He noted previous additions to the museum arrived with slightly less drama, with many being about half the length of the latest donation and posing less of an issue for the underpass.
It was mainly the width of the space that caused concern, rather than its height. While one side of the railway bridge reads “Boston & Albany RR,” the other gives its height: 12.5 feet. As it turns out, Pierce says, the clearing is actually a full-foot higher.
All the same, getting a car as wide as the dining coach to swing the right way was no easy task. It called for at least three massive tow trucks outfitted with heavy recovery gear.
One of the trucks was parked in the yard of John Moss, who brought out a lawn chair for the occasion.
“Whereby they'll make a restaurant out of it, I couldn't say, but if they do, I'll be one of the first customers!” he said. “But yeah, it's kind of a tough move down through here, with the corners and angles and all that they have to contend with, and it'll be interesting to watch.”
Chester Foundation Treasurer Barbara Huntoon told WAMC the museum’s ready to embrace the new car, joining a collection that includes a caboose you can reserve and sleep in.
“We've wanted a dining car for years, and this opportunity presented itself to us, so we just jumped on it, and it's been quite the endeavor,” she said. “Let me tell you, not just logistics, but expense-wise and all that. We're really happy to be able to save the car and it'll be a great addition and it will get used!”
Here's a video to give you an idea of how much of a close one this has been, getting it to swing through at this bend pic.twitter.com/X7Xlzaw0JR
— James Paleologopoulos (@WAMC_J_Paleo) December 22, 2025
Around noontime, the moment of truth arrived. Crews with Red’s Towing latched on the final pieces of equipment needed to secure the car, with small bits of rusty metal dropping off the car’s bottom with every jostle.
Flanking it on both ends were tow trucks, with the rear driving in reverse. Inside of it, the car still had furniture from its restaurant days as well as a boarded up entryway, marking where it once was connected to Bernie's, a beloved establishment known for its prime rib and more before it closed in 2022.
Sporting a faint “Amtrak” logo is visible on its side, Pierce believes the car more than likely traveled by Chester once or twice in its day.
About a half-hour after the trucks slowly started moving, the first turn was made. The leading truck flattened an ice bank in the process, but by 1 p.m., the car was half-way home, with the rear truck switching off with the one in Moss’s yard to get a better angle.
Just as the Pullman car cleared the underpass with only a few inches to spare on its right, an Amtrak train sped overhead. By 2 p.m., the dining car was on the other side of the tracks – no small feat for the small town – one that Pierce says is steeped in railway history.
I might have to bow out due to the timing, but the car is now on Emery Street. It's now a matter of getting it onto the museum property, but it's a big win for the Chester Foundation. Officials say they'd been looking to add a diner car to their collection for the past 30 years. pic.twitter.com/UziqehUllx
— James Paleologopoulos (@WAMC_J_Paleo) December 22, 2025
“This was the first railroad in the world to go over a mountain - people don't generally know that, which I don't know why. [It’s] the first railroad built through wilderness, the first place in the world [where] they used pusher engines to help the trains up the hill - there's a lot of firsts here,” he said. “That's what got us a landmark designation from the [National] Park Service, the highest you can get. That's the same category as Mount Rushmore or the Washington Monument.”
Pierce’s organization has spent decades preserving the town’s station and its history. The station itself was moved across the tracks in 1990 to save it – with preservation efforts growing ever since.
The town itself once had passenger rail access, as well: a time former resident Leonard Alexander recalled fondly for WAMC during Monday's move.
“I used to take the train every Saturday to go to Springfield. My sister and I would go down … my dad would give us each 25 cents, so we'd go to a movie, and then we'd have enough left over to have a hamburger and a soda,” he recalled. “Then, we'd take the train back home … it was a daily train: one went down in the morning, one came back at night.”
Alexander, who turns 100 in two months, also recalled the first diesel engine that tried coming through town, and how it ultimately needed help from a steam engine to get through.
He adds that he was happy to see the rise in automobiles, as well, calling them “handy” compared to the old train lines – handy like the fleet of trucks that moved a piece of train history into place.
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This story originally aired on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025
Since the airing of this piece, the Chester Railway Station & Museum has shared additional information on the history of the car's make and model.
