Adolph Bernhard Sueher, a Bavarian immigrant and pipe organ builder, relocated to this dying northeast township after WWII. He revived its only factory, giving it the name Sueher Pipe Organ Builders, NLC. It soon flourished under his leadership, as did the township. On becoming Mayor, ABS renamed it Sueher City.
The Traveling Box Car arrived unexpectedly in Sueher City just before the organ builders opened their annual festival of concerts featuring pipe organ music by the finest of all organ composers, Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Traveling Box Car Meets Serious Competition
To promote this year’s festival, an ad agency had commissioned a thirty two foot wide painting of Bach and three of his composer sons to match the longest organ pipe built by Sueher. Ad men dubbed the delivering bulkhead flat car the “Traveling Bachs Car.” Not to be upstaged by the box car’s name similarity, these men conspired with renegade railroad workers of the Sueher Specific Lines to scuttle the Traveling Box Car in Lake Sueher through its open drawbridge (with the help of a distracted bridge operator, of course).
The TBC refused to sink. It was soon discovered that the car, actually a reefer, secretly contained large tanks of helium to keep the mood light hearted at all the far and wide locations where it would visit. Unable to hide the TBC evidence, festival promoters found themselves in deep trouble.
Faced with threats of reprisal from the infamous McMurry Trainyard Gang, Adolph Bernhard Sueher eventually accepted responsibility, and authorized removal of the TBC from Lake Sueher, as well as repairs which would be completed at Sueher Salvage Service’s yard facility.
With amends made and accepted, the TBC was given a tour of Sueher City, along with the care and respect it deserves. Fulluda Station is a replica of Fullerton, CA’s Amtrak/Metrolink Station. Its approach featuring a curve and a 5% grade is reminiscent of the curve and nearly 5% grade approaching Saluda, NC (insert, upper right corner).
The TBC passes A. B. Sueher’s Villa at 911 Canal St; Sueher Heights with its South Minster Cathedral at the upper left, and Fulluda Curve with its 5% grade.
Sueher Central Station with the celebrated Bach Organ Festival painting installed at its intended rooftop location. The statue at center platform between the tracks is Dietrich Baron von Sueher who founded the Sueher dynasty in Bavaria in the late seventeenth century.
The Traveling Box Car concludes its Sueher City visit with a run by the Sueher Pipe Organ Builders, NLC factory complex. Company trucks are being loaded with the components of their latest instrument. Sueher even requested permission to incorporate the TBC’s helium tank feature in their own shipments in the hope that their pipe organs might provide music in a lighter vein as well. Sueher City officials affirm no rolling stock suffered injury in this presentation, and all photos were produced under supervision of the SPCAFC (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Accessories & Freight Cars).
