Monday, March 25, 2024

Philadelphia Car Heading West

Thanks to Bill Wulfert, who has passed along the news that Philadelphia Rapid Transit 2282 has been acquired by the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum from the Electric City Trolley Museum.
Car 2282 is in rough shape but it's extremely historic. It's the oldest double-truck streetcar, and the second-oldest streetcar (after this one, which is in imminent danger of demolition), from Philadelphia in existence. It was built by Brill in 1906 and when retired in 1928 it went to the Shamokin & Edgewood Electric, where it finished out its career 10 years later. The car has been through a few owners in the preservation era: it was at Magee until Hurricane Agnes did in that organization, then it was owned by Ed Blossom for a few decades before his collection went to ECTM in Scranton around 2000. In recent years, it's been stored in ECTM's barn in Moosic. I haven't updated the car's PNAERC record yet - I always do that when the car physically moves, and as far as I know, it's still in Scranton for the moment. But it's good to see that the car is going to another good home at PTM and that ECTM will have a spot open up for something else to be stored inside.

As for the museums involved, PTM has been on a bit of an acquisition spree lately in the wake of acquiring a new storage building along their line. This will be their third acquisition in the last couple of years, after Shamokin & Mt. Carmel 33 and Port Authority Transit 1713. For ECTM, this is their second deaccession in the last few years, after Chicago Aurora & Elgin 453. The museum doesn't really have any space to expand, nor anywhere to store cars outdoors, so if they want to acquire a new piece of equipment they need to get rid of something they have.

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