Brill Semi-Convertible Acquired by PTM

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is on a collecting spree. After acquiring the "Terrible Trolley" PCC car earlier this summer, on Friday they took delivery of a far more inherently historic car: Shamokin & Mt. Carmel Transit 33. S&MC 33 was built by Brill in 1905 and it's a surprisingly rare example of a Brill "rubber stamp" semi-convertible. Cars of this design ran on a huge number of streetcar lines, especially small-town lines, in the early years of the century. But most were long gone by the time the preservation movement rose up, so the truly "off-the-shelf" Brill semi-convertible is nearly extinct. In fact, this is arguably the last example of the classic type.

This car was built for the S&MC and ran on that system until it was retired in 1938 (in-service photo here). It was then acquired by the Knoebel's Amusement Park in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, where for many decades it sat underneath a large shed, largely out of sight for much of that time. The family elected to dispose of the car this year and, fortunately, elected to convey it to PTM as indicated by the museum's post here.

Postcard from Yakima

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson, who visited the Yakima Electric Railway Museum this past week and sent along some photos of the collection there. I haven't been to Yakima, but from what I've seen, it looks like a fascinating time capsule - a small-town street railway car barn preserved in amber, to some degree, complete with a set of working line shaft-operated machines in one corner of the barn. The system outside I'm also not terribly familiar with; they operate an Oporto single-trucker, but I'm not sure how far they go. The trackage extends a ways out of town but some of the wire was stolen some years back, if memory serves. Overall, it's a unique setup.

Here's an overview inside the barn. On the left is Yakima Valley Traction 298, the line's steeplecab, built new for Yakima by GE in 1922. Behind it is line car A, which was built as a locomotive by Niles, of all companies, in 1909. On the right is the Oporto single-trucker. All three of these pieces are operational, I believe, though the locomotive and line car appear to be only rarely used.

The only piece of native passenger equipment in operational condition is this attractive Master Unit, YVT 21, which was built by Brill in 1930. It went to Portland Traction in 1948 after YVT quit passenger service and was then privately owned until it was repatriated in 1989.

There's also identical car 22, emblazoned with the name of its former (and now-deceased) owner. This car is not operational but appears to be in reasonably good condition.

And finally, as far as traction equipment is concerned, there is YVT 20, which was part of the same 1930 order but fared markedly worse than its two sisters. It, too, went to Portland Traction and then spent time in the rain forest in Snoqualmie in private ownership. However at some point its condition deteriorated markedly and it had a tree fall on it - which came first is a chicken/egg question that I'm not sure about. It was finally pulled out of the forest in 2018 and, amazingly, was not scrapped but instead was sent to Yakima. I have no idea what the long-term plans for this car might be.

Again, many thanks to Wesley for sending these great photos!

Wrong Fair

Back in 2019, I posted here that Los Angeles Transit Lines 1435 - or, at least, its body - had been sold by the Southern California Railway Museum to the Riverside County Fairgrounds in Indio. Except, it turns out that I had the wrong fairgrounds - and the wrong Riverside County Fairgrounds, no less. The new Riverside County Fairgrounds is in Indio, but the old Riverside County Fairgrounds was in Perris, just a couple of miles from SCRM. After the fair moved to Indio, I guess, it changed its name to the Southern California Fairgrounds. And sure, enough, there's the car on Google Maps in an image captured in 2022. Car 1435's history has been corrected.