Track House

Fifteen years ago, Jack Sessums, a devoted train fan, saw a rusted Pullman at the Colton train yard, shoved aside like a beached behemoth. “He decided to take it home,” his widow Beverly recalls, “and fix it up.”

Easier said than done. The 82-foot-long car was loaded onto a flatbed truck for the drive to Redlands, where a crane lifted the 84-ton car onto its final resting place at the back of the Sessums’ 37-acre property.

The car, which in its heyday had carried passengers from L.A. to the Grand Canyon, needed a complete face-lift. The Sessums refurbished the window frames and outfitted them with new glass. The exterior was scraped and repainted a deep green. Inside, the couple installed a small sitting room with a convertible sofa to accommodate overnight visitors.

“People really have a love of trains,” Beverly says. “It’s been fun to bring it back to life. . . . Better than seeing it end up in a salvage yard stripped apart for its metal.”