I happened across a mention of B&K 10 a number of years back. It's a double-truck California car built by the American Car Company in early 1912 (ordered at the end of 1911), and was said to be at the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield, California, but other than that I knew basically nothing about it. I managed to find a reference or two that confirmed the car's presence at the museum but had never seen a photo of it - until now.
It's a body, which I had pretty much assumed (the B&K abandoned streetcar service in Bakersfield around 1941 from what I can tell), but as car bodies go it looks halfway decent. It's a handsome deck-roof car that bears a strong resemblance to San Jose Railway 124, another 1912 American-built California car which is preserved up in San Jose (though SJR 124 has a longer closed section).
Furthermore, B&K 10 is currently undergoing a cosmetic restoration. It has been placed in a newly-renovated event space at the Kern County Museum and a small crew seems to be working on rehabbing it. So I've updated its condition and have also added a few tidbits of information I found, like overall length and seating capacity. I still don't know what control, motors, brakes, or pump it would have had in service, so if you have any books on the B&K then let me know what you find.
And while I'm at it, I may as well mention that this is not the only B&K car preserved. Car 4, a single-truck California car dating to 1900, is preserved at SCRM in Perris and was fully restored from car body status itself. It was retired from passenger service (supposedly due to a run-in with an AT&SF steam engine) and made into a work car in 1912, right about the time car 10 was being delivered from the American plant in St. Louis.
Came across this on the museum's website. You can scroll down and see the completed car. Looks like they did a good job on it.
ReplyDeletehttps://kerncountymuseum.org/recent-restoration-projects/