Friday, August 31, 2018

A little mystery

There are more than 40 pieces of equipment currently on the PNAERC list whose condition and/or current whereabouts are a complete mystery to me. I try and note these cars' condition/status as "situation unknown" so that I can try and come back to them later and figure out what has happened to them. I figure why not list them here; hopefully someone has some information on whatever became of these pieces of equipment and whether they're even still in existence.

Let's start out with the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. NMIH maintains the old Bethlehem Steel site, which has been quite impressively turned into a mixture of casino, event space, and history museum. Until recently, at least, there were seven or more electrified ore transfer cars, or "larries," that were used on the "high line" at the steel plant. More recently there seem to be fewer - overhead photos show six cars still on the "high line," which suggests that most likely one of the seven of these cars currently on the PNAERC list may have been scrapped. But which one? I've only been able to ID four from photos by fleet number, leaving cars 1, 4, and 8 as Schroedinger's Larries until I can figure it out.
UPDATE: This mystery has been solved! The two unidentified cars at NMIH are "D" and "F", a different type of cump car. Cars 1, 4, and 8 are presumed to have been scrapped at some point.

Then there's the odd case of the disappearing steeplecab. Until the 1990s the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio used - or at least owned - two electric locomotives, Texas Transportation 1 and 2. Number 2, an ex-Texas Electric cab-on-flat, has been very nicely restored and plinthed at the old brewery site. That leaves number 1, a standard Baldwin-Westinghouse class B, of which I cannot find any solid record more recent than 2006. At that time it was stored at the old SP engine shops just west of East Yard in San Antonio, but unless it's stored inside a building - a real possibility - it's not there anymore. So where is it - and is it even still in existence?
UPDATE: This mystery has been solved!

Finally, for the moment, there's New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board 50, a diminutive and homely four-wheel boxcab locomotive that until circa-2010 was on display in Mel Ott Park in Gretna, LA just across the river from New Orleans. Then it suddenly disappeared from its spot on the lawn alongside Belle Chasse Highway. There have been suggestions it was owned by the Louisana Steam Train Association, which has gone through some upheaval in recent years, so it's conceivable that it was scrapped by LASTA - or that they just moved it somewhere else, or that the city put it in storage somewhere. Anyone know?
UPDATE: This mystery has also been solved!

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