Spam cans to the Carolinas

The Friends of Philadelphia Trolleys Facebook page (no log-in required) reports that the last pair of ex-CTA "spam can" rapid transit cars, SEPTA 482 and 483, have at long last left Philadelphia and are on the road to a new home in North Carolina. The above photo is from the announcement.

The two cars in question are among the earliest CTA 6000-series 'L' cars built that are still around. They were constructed in late 1950 or early 1951 by St. Louis Car Company as CTA 6089-6090, like all 6000s a married pair. As part of the CTA's initial order for 6000s they were not built using components from scrapped PCC streetcars but were designed to utilize standard PCC components like windows and control equipment.

Most of the CTA's fleet of 6000s was retired during the mid-1980s when the 2600-series (today the eldest CTA cars in service) was delivered. By 1986 there were still some 6000s in service but most had been retired and in storage. In the meantime the SEPTA ex-Philadelphia & Western line between Norristown and 69th Street in Philadelphia was practically in a state of collapse. Several accidents and fires occurred in 1985-1986 that took cars - some 60 years old - out of service and the operations over the P&W were actually suspended for a few months in the fall of 1986 for lack of equipment. Desperate for rolling stock, SEPTA purchased ten pairs of retired 6000s in rough shape from the CTA and put seven of them into service in late 1986, cannibalizing the other three pairs for parts. These cars permitted the resumption of service on the P&W line and comprised the majority of the service fleet on the line until the new N-5 cars arrived in 1993-1994.

Amazingly, all seven pairs of 6000s sold to SEPTA are still around, although all have been victims of benign neglect over the past 25 years. Five sets, including at least one pair that was never repainted by SEPTA and retains its CTA Bicentennial color scheme, are in storage at VESCO in Windber, PA. Another pair is at the Middletown & Hummelstown. And that leaves 482-483, which have been sitting alongside 72nd Street Shop on the Norristown line for 25 years. I'm not sure why this pair stuck around so long however I think that they were retained for a couple of years after retirement from passenger service as "brine cars" for spraying ice melt on the third rail.

Where they're headed is the Craggy Mountain Line in Woodfin, North Carolina. Since its creation a decade ago, CML has amassed the largest - and by far the oddest - collection of traction equipment in the Carolinas. Joining two local Asheville single-truck streetcar bodies is the body (on trucks) of a New York IND subway car and, now, a pair of ex-Chicago Philadelphia rapid transit cars. What CML plans to do with the cars isn't entirely clear but they are, at least, the organization's first complete (or at least mostly complete) electric cars. For its part, SEPTA hasn't run out of semi-derelict rapid transit cars on its property yet.