There Are Abandoned Cabooses On The Rails In Clare, Michigan

Growing up with the popular children's book series, The Boxcar Children, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw that there are abandoned cabooses on the old Pere Marquette Railroad in Clare, MI. Apparently I wasn't alone in this, and thought that this would be a super cool project if someone could renovate it and maybe turn it into a mini Air B&B. A lot of people are curious how these carts were just abandoned and who may own them, and one person commenting on a recent post suggested he may have an answer:

That setup usually means that the railroad gave the car (a couple box cars in Onaway fell under this) and the rail section to the property owner of the spur in question. Never saw this one on the list of those in Michigan in private hands or public display.

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As cool as these photos are, they WERE taken almost 10 years ago and some people are saying that these tracks have been recently torn up and unearthed, so we're still waiting to see recent photos, although, one man recently took his son on a trip up north and claims these can be common, as they visited a caboose in the woods in someone’s front yard up north outside of Beulah off M22.

The location of the caboose in question seems to actually have been pinpointed:

This is on the former Mid-Michigan Recyclers spur. The actual former PM/C&O track now ends at least 1200 feet east of that spur switch, somewhere in the woods between the former locations of the west Clare siding switch and the Wickes Lumber switch.