One of the stranger "missing streetcars" on the PNAERC list,
outlined here, has been found. This one is strange because most of the cars I consider "missing" are only missing to
me - people associated with the owners, or former owners, know what happened to those cars. In the case of
Milwaukee Street Railway 200, though, it went missing and nobody - including its owner, East Troy Electric Railroad - knew what happened to it. Until now! ETER member Scott Patrick posted the above photo, and some others, on Facebook showing that the car has indeed turned up on the property of a man who had been somehow involved with an abortive restoration attempt about a decade ago. The car is in rough shape, essentially a skeleton sitting atop an unusual steel frame that was built c2010, but then again it wasn't much more complete when it left East Troy in 2009. It sounds like East Troy is going to move the body of car 200 back to their site and look into options for future restoration.
It's good that the car wasn't lost. As skeletal as it is, it's quite historic and may be the oldest electric car preserved in the Midwest. It was built in 1892, using an 1888 horsecar as a base, and was used as a street railway parlor car until a second rebuilding in 1907 which turned it into a hospital car (does this make it the only preserved electric railway hospital car in the country?). Then in 1919 its slow downgrading process continued and it became a tool car, finally leaving the roster in 1931.
It's so sad to see the car in its current condition. Years of "protection" by an undersized Harbor Freight tarp had not served it well, as seen by the shreds and wood condition. Thank goodness it has been found, and apparently on the road to restoration again. The patterns are there, in any case.
ReplyDeleteO. Anderson