Milwaukee parlor car off the list

Thanks to Sean Bowen of the East Troy Electric Railroad for relating the news that Milwaukee Street Railway 200 has collapsed. It was recently deaccessed by that organization because its condition had deteriorated beyond the point of reasonable salvation, and its location made it essentially impossible to retrieve intact. The car has been removed from the PNAERC list.

Car 200 was built in the company shops in 1892 as a single-truck parlor car. It was rebuilt in 1907 for use as a hospital car, and in 1919 it was rebuilt again for use as a tool car. It was retired in 1931. Its body was acquired in 1986 by The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society and moved to East Troy, where a few years later ownership was assumed by ETER. For many years the car sat in the barn at East Troy. In 2009, during a major collection purge that saw ETER dispose of several PCC streetcars and 'L' cars as well as an interurban car body, car 200 left East Troy (pictured above). It was moved to Spring Green, where an off-site group of volunteers planned to rebuild it with a steel frame.

This effort didn't get very far, though it does appear that they did some disassembly and installed that steel frame. By the late 2010s, the off-site group had essentially melted away and for a time the car's condition and whereabouts were something of a mystery. But it turned up again in 2020, by which time it looked like the photo above. As I mentioned, it's been in a location that made retrieval very difficult, so ETER wasn't able to get it out of Spring Green and bring it back to East Troy. With the loss of car 200, the ETER collection stands at 24 cars and the overall PNAERC list includes a total of 2,083 cars.

Lake Shore Electric car removed from list

One of the cars on the PNAERC list that I was never able to find a recent photo of was Lake Shore Electric 15, which is why the photo above was taken in 1938. This car, built in 1900 by Barney & Smith, was a body located on private property west of Greenwich, Ohio. It was (barely) visible on aerial photos and Google Street View, and people familiar with the owner related the car's identity, but it was known to be in poor condition. The same was true of the other piece of railroad equipment on the property, a wooden Wagner sleeping car of more historical value.

Anyway, thanks to Noah Bailor for pointing out via the "Ahead of the Torch" Facebook page that LSE 15 had disappeared. Sure enough, Street View images from last month confirm it's no longer in the location it used to occupy. Given its reputedly poor condition, I strongly suspect it has been demolished, so I've taken it off the PNAERC list. The list now includes 15 LSE cars, including LSE 7, a sister car of 15 that also isn't quite in pristine condition; and seven Barney & Smith cars, including LSE 7 and two other interurban cars along with one streetcar and three Lackawanna MU parlor cars. The list overall stands at 2,084 cars.

Public Service Car Runs

There's exciting news from Piscataway, New Jersey, today. Public Service Coordinated Transport 2651, one of just two of the system's big, iconic deck-roof passenger cars still in existence, was made operational again for the first time in something like 70 years. The car was salvaged as a car body in the 1970s, and for the last few decades has been the subject of an involved restoration project to make it complete and return it to operation. Its owner, the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society, posted some videos on their Facebook page showing the initial test "trips." For now, the car is in the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway, but rumors suggest it may be heading to a nearby trolley museum where it will have a chance to stretch its legs. For now, congrats to the NJERHS group on a major milestone for this historic car.

Northern Texas Traction car tracked down

I've been wondering for a while whatever happened to Northern Texas Traction 407. The car was put up for auction and sold in early 2024, supposedly to a buyer from North Carolina, but I wasn't able to figure out where it went until now. The photo shown here, from this Flickr page, was taken this July and I only noticed it now. It seems that car 407 was purchased by the Aberdeen Carolina & Western, a shortline railroad with a tourist railroad side business known for flashy paint jobs and unorthodox adaptive reuse projects. I cannot fathom what they have in mind for car 407, but for the moment it seems to just be in storage in their impressive car shop. I've updated the car's record and added the AC&W to the PNAERC database, as this is their first piece of traction equipment.

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.