Lost Railway Museum grows

For a brief period in recent years the tiny hamlet of Grass Lake, Michigan had the unusual distinction of containing two separate traction preservation groups. First came the local historical society, which in 2013 retrieved the body of Michigan Electric 29, a 1913 steel interurban car, from a nearby house and put it into storage. Then a couple of years later came the Lost Railway Museum, a dueling group, which acquired the recently-discovered body of Chicago Surface Lines 1137 from a family in Wisconsin and painted it up as a Michigan United Traction car.

That situation is now no more. Thanks to Wesley Paulson, who took time to look into recent developments in Grass Lake, this article from last September came to light describing how the Grass Lake Historical Society has transferred ownership of car 29 (and the remnants of the long-suffering North Shore 154) to the Lost Railway Museum. The native car has even been painted in Michigan Electric colors and moved into the LRM display building, where car 1137 is already housed, as shown above. Ownership of both cars has been updated in the PNAERC database.

This seems like good news. Car 29 is obviously in the midst of a cosmetic restoration that seems to be progressing nicely. It's apparently been placed on South Shore interurban trucks and will be displayed alongside the ex-CSL streetcar and alongside a San Diego horsecar acquired late last year. As for car 154, its current status isn't entirely clear; as of early 2017 the stripped shell of the car was still in Grass Lake awaiting possible interest from an outside group but it may have been cut up since. Oddly, both 154 and 29 have sister cars preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum; North Shore 160 is in operational condition while Michigan Electric 28 is undergoing a major rebuilding effort. Another classmate of car 154, North Shore 162, is extant in Connecticut but is in poor condition and has been offered for sale.