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Hicks Car Works confirms that IRM has sold
South Shore 37 to an individual in Indiana; the car left on the same truck which carried
North Shore 172 to Union on the 7th. Car 37 is far from unique; it's a typical 1929-vintage un-lengthened coach built by Standard Steel and is identical to a number of other cars in preservation including
car 34 which operates at IRM on occasion. Following retirement it was allocated to the City of Michigan City, which intended to use it as an office of some sort, but that never panned out and after five years it was sold to IRM to prevent it from being scrapped. Although stored inside for the last 25 years it was never accessioned and its sale permits car 172 to be immediately put into indoor storage.
The sale of car 37 is a rarity: as expansive as its collection is, IRM is not known for selling or trading traction equipment to other museums. In fact car 37 is only the second car on the PNAERC list to be a
former possession of IRM, the other being an
'L' car sold all the way back in 1984. At its new home car 37 joins a handful of other South Shore cars - though no Standard Steel-built cars - and its owner's intention is to preserve and restore the car.
I thought the Red Arrow center door car 68 was sold as a complete car. Also, wasn't there was a CTA yellow work motor that was sold to East Troy and became a line car, returning to operation there, then returned to IRM? How about all the L cars sold in the late 1970s - but I don't know if they qualify as being part of IRM. Not common, but I thought there were a few more examples such as these. -O. Anderson
ReplyDeleteI was also called out via email on this topic - car 68 was brought up, as was CTA S373 - but I would point out that what I wrote was “37 is only the second car on the PNAERC list to be a former possession of IRM.” I did not write, and did not mean to imply, that car 37 was only the second electric car ever sold by IRM. My statement excludes car 68, as it was scrapped and is not on the PNAERC list. It also excludes car S373 because it is a current (as opposed to former) possession of IRM, as it was reaquired a few years after sale. I’m also excluding here a few cars (Singer 1 and CTA 4175 among them) that spent time at IRM but were never owned by the museum. (For a list of all of the electric cars sold or otherwise disposed of by IRM see the Hicks Car Works blog.)
ReplyDeleteHave I confused you enough yet?