Cars for Sale

There are a couple of minor updates regarding electric cars for sale. First, Muni 1150, the ex-St. Louis Public Service PCC located in Le Grand, California, has officially been listed for sale in an online auction that concludes toward the end of October.

Judging from the photos, the car is in remarkably good shape. Other than the dust and dirt, it could have just pulled in from a revenue trip. It's quite the time capsule. With luck, this will go somewhere that can continue to keep it stored inside, though given the glut of PCCs, car 1150 will probably be fortunate to be purchased for preservation at all.

And in other news, it was pointed out to me that New Haven 4106, the only surviving "pre-Washboard" MU car from that railroad, has supposedly been sold. At least, that's what the Ozark Mountain listing says. I don't have any recent information on this car, including who might have bought it or when, so any updates would be appreciated. Although it's far - very far - from complete as an MU car, it's certainly an historic piece.

WMATA 2000s Added to the List

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority announced today that they'd shipped the last of their 2000-series subway cars off to scrap - the last, that is, except for the pair they've set aside for preservation. Those cars weren't on the PNAERC list until now, but I've just added WMATA 2000 and 2001 to the database.

These two cars were built by Breda in 1981 and in terms of overall construction, they're extremely similar to the other WMATA cars that entered preservation a few years back. They were overhauled around 2002 or so and at that time they acquired upgraded inverter control and AC traction motors. This seems to have made them more reliable than the older 1000s, which acquired earlier-generation AC motors in the mid-1990s; the 4000s, which were never upgraded with AC motors; or even the 5000s, which were built in 2001 with AC motors. (The 3000s, built in the late 1980s and upgraded with AC motors around 2009, are still in service.) The last 2000-series cars were retired just about a year ago, in October 2024, and cars 2000-2001 were in the ceremonial last-day-of-service train (pictured above in a photo from here). As far as I know, cars 2000-2001 are stored in Greenbelt Yard along with the other six cars in the WMATA historic fleet.

And in other positive news, thanks to Anderson Pries for sending the above photo taken last weekend of Chicago Aurora & Elgin 316 at the Fox River Trolley Museum. The occasion was the dedication of this 1913 Jewett-built interurban car following a major restoration effort, and sister car 20 - the oldest operating interurban car in the country, but mostly out of service pending wheel work - came out for the first time in a few years for the occasion as well. Car 316's status has been updated to reflect that it is no longer under restoration, but has joined the FRTM operating fleet.

Bullet Car Parts

Seashore has posted on their Facebook page that SEPTA "Bullet" car 208, one of three identical cars of that series preserved in Kennebunkport, is being stripped for parts to assist in the restoration of sister car 205 at Rockhill. Car 208 has been deaccessioned, and the plan is to "part it out" and dismantle it.

This isn't a significant loss, historically speaking. Of the 10 "Bullet" cars built for the Philadelphia & Western,* six (soon to be five) are still around, so the type is pretty over-represented. Car 203, the last "Bullet" car built (as a wreck replacement in 1933), is also at Seashore, as is car 207, which has been deaccessioned. There's car 206 on outdoor display at Electric City, car 209 on indoor display at PTM, and car 205, which is the only member of the class currently operational. Car 205 is also in the midst of a restoration project to return it to its Red Arrow appearance. On the whole, it seems likely that the parts from car 208 will do a great deal of good on car 205 and, perhaps, the other preserved Brill "Bullets."

*There are also two "Bullet" cars still around that were built for the Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville and later went to Bamberger: semi-derelict car 126, stored in Ogden, Utah, and car 127, stored in good - albeit incomplete - condition at SCRM.

Let's Work on a PCC

Following on the heels of the return of the Terrible Trolley, more PCC restoration news has come to light. It appears that working on restoring PCC cars is all the rage these days!

First up is DC Transit 1430, a wartime (prewar-style) car built in 1944 by St. Louis for the Washington, DC system. One of only five Washington PCC cars still in 1) the US, and 2) its original form, and the only member of its series extant, the car was retired in 1962 and made its way to the Rockhill Trolley Museum. It remained there, stored outdoors, until 1997, when it went back to home territory at the National Capital Trolley Museum. NCTM volunteers have now started working on the car, starting with cleaning up and repainting the interior, so its status has been changed to "undergoing restoration." Thanks to Wesley Paulson for the update on this car. The above photo is from here.

Next comes San Francisco Municipal Railway 1153, which was built by St. Louis in 1946 for the hometown streetcar system as St. Louis Public Service 1742. It went to Muni in 1957 and upon retirement in 1982 it was acquired by the Western Railway Museum. It has been stored at WRM ever since, mostly as a static display piece as far as I can tell, but that looks to be changing. As shown in the above photo (from here), car 1153 has been brought into the WRM shop for mechanical work. It is receiving a rebuilt MG set and possibly other work. Its status, too, has been updated to "undergoing restoration." There are 21 cars from this series on the PNAERC list, but most are in rough shape - I'd opine that car 1153 is in better shape than all but two or three of the others.

And finally we have this, which is just a thumbnail (I can't find the original image, posted earlier this week) purporting to show SEPTA 2336, one of the system's modernized "PCC III" cars. This car has been undergoing another overhaul for something like a year and a half, but the novel development is that it is supposedly being painted in "Gulf Oil" colors rather than in traditional PTC green and cream like the rest of the PCC III fleet. Time will tell whether it rolls out of the shop in this livery. Although the "Gulf Oil" livery is among the more distinctive applied to PCC cars, only one car has heretofore been repainted in these colors.

The Terrible Trolley Rides Again

Today in a dramatic ceremony the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum unveiled its latest restoration project: Port Authority Transit 1713, better known as the "Terrible Trolley." This car, a 1949-vintage PCC built for Pittsburgh Railways, was in 1980 painted in an elaborate livery honoring the Pittsburgh Steelers. The car was acquired by PTM two years ago and since then has undergone a speedy restoration to its 1980 appearance. The car is undoubtedly eye-catching, and as popular as the Steelers are in Pittsburgh, it's sure to raise awareness of the museum with a fan base that may not currently be very familiar with the museum.

As for car 1713, its condition has been updated to reflect that it is in operation at the museum. This means that of the eight 1700-series Pittsburgh cars on the PNAERC list, the only two that are restored and operating are both at PTM. (I should also mention that I recently removed several cars in this series from the list that were at Windber because they had clearly collapsed, making them effectively unsalvageable in my opinion and, therefore, no longer "preserved.") The photo above is from a Railpace post on Facebook.

And in unrelated news, Bill Wall sent along this link and alerted me to the fact that Branford has just celebrated the 125th birthday of its line! The line from Branford to East Haven via Short Beach opened on July 31st, 1900, and has been in operation continuously ever since, which is quite a distinction. Of course, the math  majors among our readership will realize that the trolley museum has operated the line for significantly longer now than did the Connecticut Company. The museum celebrated this anniversary with a ceremony at Sprague Station, in East Haven (photos and information here). Kudos to BERA on this milestone! The photo shown here is from that first link and here.

Update from Branford

Thanks to Bill Wall, who has sent along an update of recent progress in the shop at Branford:

First news item is the reappearance of Montreal Tramways locomotive 5002, which was flooded in 2011 and 2012 by Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. The motors have been redone and while they were out the opportunity taken to rebuild the very worn out trucks. With a newly made center plate, new old stock Red Arrow center door wheels replacing the cracked or broken tiny pie plate wheels, an armature rewound and other work, 5002 hasn't been this good mechanically since it was built. Another one brought back to life...

Thanks to the Amherst Railway Society for their grant supporting this 1917 homebuilt steeplecab.

Connecticut Company car 775 has had the majority of its rattan seats redone just in time for the 125th anniversary (7/31)  of the opening of the original Branford Electric Railway on the very route that is now our museum line. A total of 10 bottoms and 10 seat backs were redone with new material, courtesy of combining two grants from the Mass. Bay RRE and the NRHS, along with some internal support. A special thanks to both organizations for helping to make this happen. Attached you will find some photos of before and after the work was done. 

Ed. note: A how-to guide to restoring rattan seats, written by Bob Yohe of Branford and provided by Bill Wall, is posted on our sister blog Hicks Car Works here.

First Portland LRV Preserved

Thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski for forwarding along this link announcing that TriMet (MAX) 101, the first light rail vehicle built for the Portland light rail system, has been moved to the Oregon Electric Railway Museum for preservation. The image above is a screen grab from the video posted on the museum's Facebook page.

Car 101 was built by Bombardier in 1983, making it the first Bombardier-built LRV in preservation. It underwent some testing in Pueblo, Colorado, in late 1983 before delivery to Portland the following year and entry into service in 1986. The Portland light rail system was the third modern system of its type to open in the US, following San Diego in 1981 and Buffalo (which was intended to be a heavy-rail subway but morphed into a hybrid light rail system when funding ran short) in 1984.

I've also added a new top-level "car type" classification to the PNAERC list. Until now, I've been classifying LRVs as rapid transit cars, but I've just created a new "light rail vehicle" classification. There are now 14 LRVs on the list, including seven San Diego U2 cars, four 1970s-era Boeing SLRVs, and three one-offs, including TriMet 101. OERHS also joins Western Railway Museum and Southern California Railway Museum as the only organizations to roster LRVs of multiple types, though WRM still leads the way with three different types of LRV (and from three different systems, no less).