Cars in Limbo

The PNAERC roster uses an assortment of criteria for judging whether to include a car. An attempt to explain all these criteria can be found here, linked from the landing page for the list. The first question I ask is whether it's an electric car, which is usually - though not always - obvious. The second question, which can be thornier, is whether the car is "preserved." If the answer is yes (and the car meets the other PNAERC criteria), then it goes onto the list. But if it isn't really "preserved" as such - if it still exists but is in more of a state of limbo or is more of a utility, e.g. it's part of a structure - then it's excluded.

However, a few years ago a fellow IRM volunteer named Lucas McKay started tracking these "not-quite-preserved" cars in a Google spreadsheet. After a while, I took over maintenance of this list. While this list is linked from the Preserved Traction Blog site, it's hidden down at the bottom of the righthand column and is totally invisible if you're reading on mobile. Marc Glucksman recommended highlighting its existence, which I think was an excellent suggestion. So click here to view the "non-preserved" list.

This list is a lot less complete than the PNAERC roster proper. There's almost no mechanical information, in part because almost nothing on the list still has any of its mechanical components. It's far less complete, not only because I've only been maintaining it for a few years but because almost all the entries are in private ownership and are a lot harder to track down. There are some well-known cars like the PE car used as the Formosa Cafe and a smattering of bodies still at Lake Lamoka, New York (including the ex-Corning & Painted Post carcass shown above). There are also quite a few little-known entries. And I'm always looking for more to add, so let me know if you come across anything that isn't on the list.

Enjoy!

NTT Box Motor Update

I have updated the ownership of Northern Texas Traction 332, a heavily modified box motor originally built in the NTT shops in 1912, to reflect that it is now in private hands and (evidently) on display in Denton. This car was found as a body in the mid-1980s and moved to McKinney Avenue Transit Authority in the early 1990s, where MATA started working to convert it into a parlor and dining car. But work stalled out at some point, and by 2014 the car was evicted from the tight quarters at the MATA barn and moved to the Museum of the American Railroad site in Frisco. There it sat on display for a number of years (the photo above was taken in 2015) but I realized at some point that it had disappeared, so I'd changed it's status to "unknown." I just learned that it's back in the hands of the man who originally found it back in the 1980s (I'll confess that I'm not sure whether he's retained ownership this whole time) and is supposedly on display next to a restaurant in Denton. Anyone have any photos, or even details on where in Denton it is?

Anyway, the MARR collection is now down to 11 pieces, all mainline railroad equipment: 10 ex-Illinois Central "Highliners" and a PRR GG-1.

New England News

A couple of pieces of interesting pieces of information have surfaced from New England. First, it seems SEPTA 618 is on its way to its new home at the Trolley Museum of New York. I've updated its ownership in the PNAERC roster because it's left Seashore, though it hasn't yet arrived in Kingston. The car should be a good match with TMNY, given that it comes with standard-gauge trucks originally off a PATH K-car, so it can be towed in operation at its new home.

And thanks go to Matthew Juergens from the Connecticut Trolley Museum, who passes along information about recent happenings there. The museum is currently in the process of repainting their two-axle Corbin steeplecab, E2. A photo of the recent progress is below, and I have updated the locomotive's status to "undergoing restoration." Thanks, Matthew!

PCC for Sale?

An intriguing post showed up a couple of days ago on the Facebook page for Aumann Vintage Power, which I'll confess I'd never heard of before. They are evidently auctioning off a huge collection of tractors, trucks, and other miscellaneous equipment (including the school bus involved in the Chowchilla kidnapping, of all things) sometime this summer. Why is this of interest? Because what's being auctioned off is (apparently) the entire collection of Bright's Pioneer Exhibit in Merced, California - and Bright's appears on the PNAERC roster! Tucked way back among all the random machinery is the ex-St. Louis Public Service, ex-Muni PCC pictured above in a photo taken in 2011. The car is Muni 1150, which was built in 1946 as St. Louis Public Service 1140 and ended its service career in 1979, from what I can tell. According to one source familiar with the Muni fleet, the car was taken out of service and moved to Merced right away, likely being put into indoor storage as soon as it got there. As such, it's probably in better shape than just about any other ex-SLPS Muni car out there except for the two or three that have been fully restored.

Now, I have to admit, the PCC doesn't appear in any of the photos on the Facebook post, so I can't be certain it's included in the auction. But it seems likely. Aumann says they will add a full listing to their website soon, so that should answer any questions. If car 1150 goes up for auction, hopefully it finds a good home.

On a totally unrelated subject, I've removed the above car, Companhia Municipal de Transportes Coletivos 1791, from the PNAERC roster. It's an ex-Third Avenue Railway System "Huffliner" built by TARS in 1938 and sold to the Sao Paolo, Brazil, system in 1947. Until sometime in the last couple of decades it was on display under a shelter at the Clube Esportivo Nautico de Guarapiranga, located near Sao Paolo, but I cannot find any evidence that it's still there despite the club being very well documented in online photographs. Until I can find some evidence that the car still exists, it's off the list.

Atlanta Car Added to List

Thanks again go to Nate Wells, who has sent along information and photos that allow me to add another car to the PNAERC list.

The car in question, shown here in photos taken last fall, is Georgia Power Company 903. It's a typical Atlanta 900-series car essentially identical to car 948, restored and operating today at Branford. For its part, car 903 was built in 1926 at almost exactly the same time as car 948. It's been kept under a roof for many decades, meaning the body actually looks like it's in decent shape except for an area near one end where the roof failed. It even appears to still wear its original paint (in fact some vestiges of its as-built livery, including pin-striping and "front entrance" lettering on the car side, are in evidence even though they were painted over later in the car's service career).

These photos were taken in car 903's longtime home in Georgia, but it was recently purchased by a collector near Montgomery, Alabama, and moved there. I can only hope it's being stored inside. Any additional information, including mechanical/electrical equipment (was the 900-939 series equipped identically to the 940-999 series?) and any plans the new owner might have for the car, would be appreciated. This is the seventh Georgia Power car on the PNAERC list, and overall the list now has a total of 2,086 cars.

Charlotte Trolleys

A huge thank you goes out to Nate Wells, who provided me with some updates on electric car preservation in North Carolina. The first update involves Carolina Power & Light 117, a longer-than-typical Birney built by Brill in 1927 for the Asheville system. This car was owned by Charlotte Trolley, and in fact was the last car on the PNAERC roster still listed under Charlotte Trolley ownership. But Nate reports that the car has, in fact, been acquired by the owner of the Savona Mill in northwest Charlotte. This is an historic mill complex that is being redeveloped as office and commercial space.

The more surprising update, at least for me, is that the two Charleston center-entrance car bodies have resurfaced! These are unusual cars built by Cincinnati in 1918 for wartime service in Charleston (there's a whole article about them in a July 1918 issue of Electric Railway Journal). There were two orders, one for trailers numbered 301-310 and one for motors numbered 311-316, and I believe both of these cars are trailers. One car is numbered 302 and the second is thought to be numbered 306 but I'm not positive of that.

Regardless, the cars were exhumed from a house back in 2006 and then spent a few years stored outdoors in Charleston before vanishing. I removed car 302 (at the time I hadn't included the second car on the list) from PNAERC back in 2021. Well, it turns out these two were bought by the Savona Mill owner and moved to Charlotte way back in 2013 as described here. They were briefly stored indoors but have been stored outside since 2015; the above photo is from this article. Google Street View shows them stored at the corner of Turner and Coxe, in steadily deteriorating condition, until about 2021 or 2022, when they were moved to (what I believe is) their current location behind a building at the southwest corner of Chamberlain and Gardner. Aerial photos suggest both cars' roofs have disintegrated, but the cars still exist and they've apparently been moved into a storage building within the last year, so they're back on the PNAERC list.

Just as a final note, I'll point out that it's a bit of a milestone to no longer have Charlotte Trolley on the PNAERC list as an owner, even though this is a bit overdue - from what I can tell, the organization was largely defunct by about 2017. But during the 1990s and early 2000s, it was quite a going concern, and played a big role in raising the profile of streetcars and light rail in Charlotte during that period. I recall visiting their barn in 2001, at which time they had car 85 in service (using a towed generator), Birney 25 on hand and purportedly under restoration, the aforementioned car 117 in storage, Red Arrow 13 being repainted, and a car from Greece on hand in good repair. But like Old Pueblo Trolley in Tucson, Charlotte Trolley was arguably a victim of its own success in publicizing electric traction, and they lost their right-of-way to a new light rail system. Unlike OPT, they disbanded as an organization, but fortunately their collection is faring well elsewhere.

Manufacturer Order Lists

For quite a while, I've had a page on this blog site with links to manufacturer order lists. If you view the website on desktop, or use "website view" on mobile, it's at the bottom of the right column with a few other interesting links. Anyway, most of the manufacturer order lists have always been lists that were posted back around 2004 by the late Dr. Harold E. Cox, a well-known traction historian. He had posted lists of quite a few builders, and from what I could tell, he was going alphabetically but stopped partway through the alphabet.

Anyway, Dr. Cox passed away in 2021 at the age of 90 after a period of declining health. I had figured that his order list site might go away at some point, so I copied and saved all the information locally. At least, I thought I did. Within the past few weeks, his old website finally went dark. It was then that I discovered I had missed a few builders! I copied the lists for ACF, American, Brill, CCF, Cincinnati, Kuhlman, LaClede, and Perley Thomas, and I've now put that information back online, linked from the page above.

But I'm missing several others, most notably Danville, Jackson & Sharp, and Laconia (the Laconia list was in PDF format; the others were HTML tables). There were also lists for Barber and Federal that I didn't save, though Barber was a very small builder and Federal went out of business very early.

UPDATE: I'd like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Mark Sims, who saved the Barber, Danville, Jackson & Sharp, and Laconia order lists, and sent them to me to add to the web page linked above. These are now available for use as well. Thanks, Mark!