Middletown Update

Thanks to Bill Wall for sending along photos and updates of the Middletown & Hummelstown collection being thinned. Four cars were scrapped over the last few days. The first two, shown below in photos taken a few months ago, were Chicago Transit Authority S371 and S372. These were CTA 4000s rebuilt in 1972 as work motors, sold in 1979 to the Buckingham Valley group, and then acquired by the M&H in the mid-1980s for parts.

These cars are certainly no big loss, especially given their condition, but it is kind of interesting how drastically the ranks of surviving 4000-series work motors have been thinned in recent years. From seven or eight examples a decade ago, there are now only two CTA S-series 4000-type work motors still in existence: S373 at IRM, stored in rough condition, and S374 at Northern Ohio, not accessioned and stored in poor condition.

The third car that has been cut up in Middletown is MBTA double-end PCC 3323, ex-Dallas Railway & Terminal 605. This car was at Branford from 1980 to 1992 and went to the M&H as part of a trade deal, but was in extremely poor condition thanks in part to salt damage from its years in Boston. The photos below were taken by Bill Wall. Trucks from one of the work motor 4000s are visible next to the PCC.

There are now 11 Dallas double-end PCCs on the list, or 10 if you discount the car in Windber that is due to be scrapped anytime. All but one of those is at Seashore.

And the final car, other than a Pullman heavyweight car that is supposedly getting cut up this week, is Philadelphia snow sweeper C121, shown below in photos by Bill Wall.

Parts from this car are being salvaged for use at other trolley museums. (Edit: C121 isn't being fully dismantled until Tuesday, but enough of it was gone by Monday evening to justify taking it off the list.) I was never really clear on the history of C121; my records suggest it was retired in 1975, but I don't know how it got to the M&H, which didn't really exist until the mid-1980s. Anyway, as with the CTA 4000s and the PCC, this is not a big loss from a perspective of historical significance. There are still eight of these big Philly sweepers in existence, a couple of which are in very poor shape but several of which are very nicely preserved.

When Wendell Dillinger died in 2023, there were 24 cars on the PNAERC list under M&H ownership. That number is now down to 15. Besides eight Lackawanna MU cars, the fleet now consists of four Philadelphia cars (a PCC, two ex-CTA "spam cans," and a Red Arrow 80-series car); two Brooklyn cars (a convertible and a box motor); and the ex-Kansas City steeplecab. The PNAERC list in its entirety now stands at 2,087 cars.

New Technology at NYTM

Thanks to Edrick Ang for news that New York City Transit Authority 3007, shown above, was moved to the New York Transit Museum today. Thanks also to James McGinty, who posted this photo on Facebook. The car has apparently been spruced up and made presentable for display as an historic artifact. As such, I've added it to the PNAERC list.

Car 3007 is pretty unusual. It's one of nine R110B type cars built in 1992 for the IND/BMT side of the New York subway system as part of the "New Technology" test program. These cars (and 10 type R110A cars built for the IRT side of the system at the same time) were intended from the start as prototypes, not production cars, and they spent less than a decade in service. The last of the R110B cars were withdrawn from service in 1992, but at least some have simply been stored since then. The R110B cars were permanently arranged into three-car trains, motor-trailer-motor, and car 3007 is one of the motor cars. It has relatively early AC traction motors and chopper control. Quite a bit more information on these cars can be found here.

The PNAERC list now includes 2,091 cars in all.

Middletown Exodus

Following the move of two cars from the Middletown & Hummelstown to Rockhill last month, today another three streetcars were loaded onto flatbeds for a trip out of town. This time, the destination of all three cars was the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. All photos below are from this Facebook page.

The first car, shown above, is Red Arrow 83. This car was built in 1932 and is of the same type as car 78, a longtime stalwart of the PTM operating fleet. Car 83 has been stored outside under a tarp for many years in Middletown, but my understanding is that it's in reasonably decent condition. I believe PTM plans to keep it. (Side note: the photo for this car in the PNAERC roster is incorrect and actually shows identical car 77, which is staying in Middletown, but I can't change or update images until our next big photo upload.)

The second car, shown above, is SEPTA 2725, a standard Philadelphia PCC built in 1947. PTM already has two Philadelphia PCCs of this general design, one of them restored and in service.

And the third car, shown here, is SEPTA 2095, another Philadelphia PCC, this time built in 1948. If the rumor mill is to be believed, neither 2095 nor 2725 will become part of the PTM historic collection. One may get scrapped for parts in Washington, but at least one is supposedly destined for a new home somewhere in the northeast. As always, information, corrections, and updates are appreciated! In the meantime, I've updated all three cars to show their new owner as PTM (although as I write this, they're technically in transit and haven't gotten to Washington yet). PTM's collection now stands at 53 pieces while the M&H is down to 19 cars listed on the PNAERC roster. EDIT: PTM posted on their Facebook page that car 2725 is, indeed, intended as a parts source. Its PNAERC record has been updated.

Berkshire Hills Arrives Home

Thanks to Jordan Helzer, who has sent the photos shown here of the famous parlor car "Berkshire Hills" being unloaded last week at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum. This returns it much closer to its original stomping grounds in western Massachusetts; indeed, SFTM is less than 20 miles as the crow flies from the old Berkshire Street Railway route through North Adams.

As seen above in a Sam Bartlett photo, the car body has been moved inside the SFTM barn, probably the first time it's really been kept under cover since it was sold by BSR back in 1932. It's been placed atop correct-type Brill 27A trucks that were acquired by Seashore in 2022 from IRM, which itself had salvaged them long ago from a North Shore Line snow sweeper that was scrapped back in the 1960s. SFTM obtained the trucks a year or so ago from Seashore and has cleaned them up and painted them in the meantime. With this acquisition, the SFTM traction collection stands at five pieces, all from the Bay State.

Columbus Spaghetti Restaurant Car Added to List

News appeared online today that the streetcar body in the defunct Columbus, Ohio, Spaghetti Warehouse has been saved for preservation by a local historical organization. The car is shown above, in a photo from here taken today, after removal from the building where it had resided since 1978. Since the car is now owned by a museum, and since I have narrowed its likely origins down to a specific series of five cars, I figure I've got enough to add it to the PNAERC list. So, here it is.

I'm reasonably sure that this is one of five cars built by American in 1922 for the Texas Interurban Railway in their 100-104 series. TIRy was an unusual system; among the last new electric interurban lines built in the country, it had lines from Dallas to Denton and Terrell that opened in 1923. The system closed in 1932, after which its lightweight cars were sold to Dallas Railway & Terminal for city service. This quintet ran as DR&T 111-115 until sometime in the mid-1950s. This car, the only ex-TIRy car preserved, was rebuilt by Spaghetti Warehouse around 1977 and has been a centerpiece on the Columbus restaurant since then.

Its new owner, the Rickenbacker Woods Foundation, is a new addition to PNAERC and a bit of an anomaly. It seems to be part museum, part community group, with a significant educational component. It's based around the boyhood home of World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and also focuses on Granville T. Woods, an inventor who lived in Columbus during the late 1800s and, among other things, invented early devices for third-rail electric railway use. It appears that RWF is hoping to construct a park adjacent to their site and make this streetcar body a feature of the park.

Holiday in Rockwood

Many thanks to Jordan Helzer, who alerted me to this blog post from last week, and to Gord McOuat of the Halton County Radial Railway, who filled me in on the details. Long story short, Hillcrest Shop in Toronto is going to be renovated, so the TTC is short of space. During the five years this work is expected to take, the historic fleet of six cars will be taking a vacation to HCRR out in Rockwood.

The first two cars to move out to HCRR were Peter Witt 2766, shown above in a photo dating to 2020, and PCC 4500. These were soon followed, between last week and this week, by PCC 4549, CLRV 4081, and CLRV 4001, which was due to be moved out to Rockwood earlier today. That leaves only ALRV 4207, which requires specialized trucking arrangements and is due to move in a couple of weeks.

I'm not certain whether the cars will see any revenue service during their time in Rockwood; they may at least get operated occasionally to keep them exercised. All are said to be operational except for 4081 and perhaps 4207, though even those are complete and in good shape. The long-term plan for the historic fleet is a bit uncertain because the TTC is no longer set up for trolley pole operation, only pantograph operation. The stated goal is to mount pantographs on these cars, or at least on some of them, once they return to Toronto.

In the meantime, I've updated their status to list HCRR as their location along with a notation that they're on loan from the TTC (the exception being 4207, since for the moment it's still in Toronto). For its part, HCRR is up to 59 cars on the PNAERC roster (including 10 CLRVs!), but that's a bit misleading; besides the five TTC cars now on the property, there are also two CLRVs being held for the American Industrial Mining Company Museum and a third that was owned by Seashore until it was given to HCRR a year ago.

Finally, on a totally different subject, this article showed up online about a streetcar body in a closed Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The car body is not on the PNAERC list (at least not yet!) because until very recently, I didn't have any information on it. It now appears that the car is a Dallas Railway & Terminal 111-115 series double-truck Birney, originally built for Texas Interurban Railway (their 100-104 series) by American in 1922. It arrived at the restaurant in Columbus in 1977. The car is due to be demolished within days or weeks if a buyer can't be found, so I'm holding off on adding it to PNAERC until it's apparent whether the car is really "preserved."

Silverliner Preserved

When interurban fans think of Silverliners, they're picturing this beauty and its ilk. But the Silverliner that's the subject of today's post is a bit more homely, albeit also significantly higher capacity, at least when it comes to seating.

The Reading Company Technical & Historical Society has announced on Facebook that Reading 9001, a "Silverliner II" electric commuter coach, has been acquired for preservation from SEPTA. The car was built by Budd in 1963 using grant money and was in service until 2012. Apparently, SEPTA has been holding onto it for about a dozen years for the purpose of preservation, but finally put it up for sale - and the RCT&HS purchased it. Since 2019, the car has been stored at Frazer, as shown above, but the plan is to move it shortly to the society's site in Hamburg. It's now been added to the PNAERC list.

Car 9001 is a behemoth, at 85' long, roughly 101,000 lbs., and seating 124 people. It began life with mercury arc rectifiers but these were later changed to silicon diode rectifiers. It also has a late-1980s vintage transformer that replaced its original PCB model. While far from the newest heavy rail commuter EMU car preserved - the ex-IC Highliners and the handful of preserved "Metropolitan" type cars from the New York era date to the early 1970s - car 9001 does have the distinction of being the most modern car from the Philadelphia area currently on the PNAERC list. For now, it's still listed under SEPTA ownership, but it will be moved over to RCT&HS ownership as soon as it rolls into Hamburg. Many thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski for alerting me to this one!

Tarped Cars on Truck Trailers in the Northeast

Thanks to Bill Wall for supplying news and photos regarding the conveyance of New Jersey Transit 5221, a utility/line car built in 1912, to Branford today. The car was moved by Silk Road from its recent home at the Kinkisharyo plant in Piscataway, New Jersey, and was unloaded in East Haven.

Car 5221 was built by Russell in 1912 as a snow plow and freight motor for the Trenton Terminal Railroad (later Public Service Railroad, then Public Service Coordinated Transport) system in New Jersey. At some point it was rebuilt as a line car, and in that guise it stayed in service on the Newark subway until it was transferred off the property in 2009. The car bounced around: it went to the National Capital Trolley Museum for a while, then was at Lyons Industries in Pennsylvania for truck rebuilding c2016-2017, and afterward ended up in Piscataway. The photo above, from this blog, was taken around 2018, but in 2019 the car was tarped and put outside. (The four photos below were all taken by Bill Wall.)

For five years or so, the car looked like this, tarped with a shrink-wrap "boat tarp" next to the Kinkisharyo building.

But through whatever means, the car was acquired by Branford. Above, it's shown loaded on a trailer.

And these last two photos, taken today, show the car on the line at Branford.

This is only the second line car in Branford's collection, and their first double-truck line car. (Oddly enough, among the "three sisters" that started the traction preservation movement in New England - Seashore, Warehouse Point, and Branford - there are only six line cars preserved among them, and 5221 is one of only two that are double-truck cars.) Car 5221 is one of six intact cars from the PSCT system before the PCC era, and four of those cars are now preserved at Branford.

The second car on the move is shown below (apologies for the thumbnail-sized image, which is a screen grab from a video posted by Seashore). You'd be hard pressed to tell from the tarp, but this is the famous Berkshire Hills, the business car from the Berkshire Street Railway that is the only survivor from that storied system.

This car was built by Wason in 1903, retired way back in 1922, and sold in 1932 for use as a diner. Following a 1994 fire that caused substantial damage, the body was acquired by Seashore in 1995, where it has been stored ever since. The car is now en route to its new home at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum, a transfer that has been planned for over a year. This is the second car on Seashore's "re-homing lists" to go to a new home; the first, MBTA line car 3283, also went to Shelburne Falls. The SFTM collection now totals five cars on PNAERC; Seashore's stands at 189 pieces; and the NJERHS is down to six cars while Branford is up one to 91 cars.

Global Air Compressor Taxonomy Change

That post title sounds like I've been playing with a random word generator, but it actually does mean something. We've made a global change to the PNAERC list to update how we classify air compressors. Now, while this change applies to all listings, it doesn't actually affect all the listings, because of course not every car on the roster has an air compressor listed. But for the ones that do, the entries have now all changed, thanks to some deft coding by our webmaster, Jeff Hakner.

First, we've added manufacturers to the air compressor listings. What before was simply a "CP-27" is now a "GE CP27." We've always included the manufacturer for trucks, motors, and control*, but only now have we extended that to compressors. Second, I've standardized on omitting hyphens. The nicely painted compressor shown above used to be a "D3-EG" on PNAERC, but now it's a "WABCO D3EG." Omitting hyphens has worked fine in the past for fleet numbers.

*K-controllers were built to identical specs by both GE and Westinghouse, so we omit a manufacturer name for them. Other types of control, like MU control and PCC control, typically have a manufacturer indicated.

Two Cars for Rockhill

Back in November, it was reported here that two cars from the Middletown & Hummelstown were headed to the Rockhill Trolley Museum. Those cars both headed to Rockhill Furnace today and were unloaded this afternoon. Thanks to Joel Salomon of RTM for the photos and update! The first car, shown above after being un-tarped, is Lewistown & Reedsville 23, a unique and historically significant center-entrance car that ran most of its service life very close to Rockhill Furnace. The second car, shown below on the Silk Road trailer, is York Railways 162. This is a Brill-built curve-sider identical to car 163, already restored and operational at RTM, and the museum evidently intends to preserve car 162 as a house to depict post-service uses of electric car bodies.

With this transfer, the collections of both RTM and M&H stand at 22 cars on the PNAERC list. The M&H collection will continue to shrink, though; a few of the basket cases are intended for scrapping, while some other cars will likely go to new homes at other trolley museums.

More Miscellany - Relocation, Removal, Disappearances

Today's entry is something of a catch-all of recent updates. First, thanks to Bill Wall for sending the above photo showing Public Service Coordinated Transport 5173. This is what remains of a four-wheel snow sweeper from the Newark subway; it burned in a fire in the subway in 1972 but its frame has been owned by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society since 1980. It's been stored in Phillipsburg for years, but was just relocated to join the rest of the NJERHS collection in Piscataway. I'm looking for information on this thing, especially who built it and when - anyone have a good PSCT roster handy?

Next up, we have a removal: Scarborough Rapid Transit 3027, a linear-induction-motor car shown above, has been dismantled by the Halton County Radial Railway. HCRR acquired two of these cars, 3027 and sister car 3026, with the idea of dismantling one, so this is not unexpected. The Halton County roster currently stands at 54 cars on PNAERC, while the overall list has 2,088 cars.

Finally, I tell you a mystery: two Texas Electric freight trailers have disappeared from the grounds of the Texas State Railroad in Rusk, Texas. The two are TE 605, built by St. Louis in 1907 as Texas Traction coach 6, rebuilt as a freight motor in 1914, and rebuilt as freight trailer 605 in 1918; and TE 613 (shown above), built in 1907 as Texas Traction coach 7, rebuilt c1914 as an RPO-coach, and then rebuilt in 1925 as a freight trailer. For years, both cars sat on the ground at the east/southeast end of the TSRR yard in Rusk. But at some point, they disappeared, both from Street View and (as near as I can tell) from aerial photos. Does anyone know for sure what happened to them? I believe they were just used for storage, so my best guess is that they were dismantled, but I'd love to know for sure. I've changed the status of each car to "unknown" pending word one way or another. (The third body owned by TSRR, ex-C&LE box motor 646, is still visible on Google Street View as recently as a year and a half ago.)

One Removal and a Couple of Questions

Thanks to Gord McOuat for confirming that the Halton County Radial Railway has dismantled Toronto CLRV 4010 as a parts source.

Car 4010 was the first CLRV to go to a museum, back on November 4, 2019, and operated at HCRY as soon as it arrived. But the museum has since acquired several other examples of the type, with the idea that the one or two cars in the worst condition would be dismantled as parts sources, and that ended up including 4010. This brings the number of CRLVs currently at Halton County down to "only" eight, though a couple of those are owned by other museums and just stored in Rockwood for the moment.

Supposedly, Halton County has also dismantled one of its two Scarborough Rapid Transit cars (the ones acquired just a few weeks ago) - but I'm not sure which one. Anyone know?

And in unrelated news, Joshua Sutherland has sent me an update on Hanna Mining 306, a large industrial steeplecab built by GE in 1928. This locomotive has been on display, albeit in somewhat neglected condition, at Hill Annex Mine State Park in Minnesota. As it turns out, that state park was permanently closed this summer to allow mining and extraction work to resume. It sounds like the old equipment and buildings may simply get demolished to make way for resumption of business (or maybe they're already gone) but I don't know for sure.

If Hanna Mining 306 gets cut up, it would not be a huge loss. Three other identical locomotives from this operation have been preserved, including one preserved indoors in impeccable condition in Duluth and two more displayed outdoors in decent condition elsewhere in the region. For the time being, locomotive 306's status has been changed to "unknown." Any updates on what happens to the artifacts at this site are appreciated.