A few updates

There have been a series of minor updates to the PNAERC list in recent weeks. San Francisco Municipal Railway 162, the 1914 Jewett-built "iron monster" acquired from Orange Empire in 2003, is back in San Francisco and ready to resume service. It was rebuilt by Brookville following a traffic accident in January 2014.

Across the country in Warren, Pennsylvania, three PCC cars most recently owned by the Lancaster Streetcar Company have been advertised for sale. SEPTA 2160, built in 1948, was retired around the 1990s but kept around for a while as a general utility car. Retired and sold in 2005, it was moved to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum in early 2006 before being sold to the LSC group in 2008 and moved to Warren.

SEPTA 2728, built in 1947 and retired from revenue service in the early 1990s only about five years after its general overhaul, led a slightly more high-profile existence. In 1995 it was painted in the silver/cream/blue "Philadelphia cream cheese" livery of the city's prewar PCC cars and used in fan trip service for a few years. Like 2160 it was put up for sale in 2005, bought by BSM and moved to Baltimore in 2006, and resold to LSC in 2008. This car was painted by LSC in a gaudy green/red/gold livery and plinthed at City Arts Park in Lancaster in late 2008. Sometime around 2010 it was extracted and moved to storage in Warren.

And finally there's SEPTA 2799, like 2728 built in 1947 and retired in the early 1990s. It too acquired a fancy paint job in 1995 for fan trip service, but this car was painted in 1940s Red Arrow red/cream/silver. It was damaged in 2000 and retired from fan trip use; in 2005-2006 it followed the same path as the other two cars, being sold and moved to BSM. This car was sold to the Lancaster group around 2010 and moved to Warren at that time.

There are more PCC cars moving around too. Pittsburgh 1705, which is stored at the Midwest Electric Railway Museum, has been deaccessed. Plans to sell it to a nascent museum near San Bernardino, California have apparently fallen through but the car is evidently still available.

And the Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway has placed SEPTA 2131, a sister car to 2160 described above, up for sale. This car was moved to Colorado in 1995 and for a time was on display at Sky Sox Park. The organization has said that a second ex-Philadelphia PCC car has already been sold to a local auto dealership for use as a display but I haven't been able to find any information on which car that is or precisely where it has gone.

And finally, thanks to Wesley Paulson for news that longtime trolley museum worker Bruce Thain has passed away. There is a write-up here. I didn't know Bruce personally but he contributed a great deal to a number of different trolley museums over the years and his loss will be keenly felt. He also operated a car restoration business in Guilford, Connecticut in recent years. A couple of his projects during the last decade or two were Capital Traction 27, which has now returned home to the National Capital Trolley Museum to have restoration work completed, and Boston Elevated Railway "Type 5" 5706, stored for many years at Branford but moved to Guilford in 2002. I believe that car 5706 and Atlantic City 250, owned by Branford, are still in Guilford.