Toronto PCC to return home

TTC 4601 in 2000

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson for sending me this post on Facebook (no login required) courtesy of the Michigan Transit Museum. For about 11 years now, MTM has stored the two PCC cars in its possession - Detroit 268, acquired via a stint in Mexico City, and Toronto 4601 - on private property near Port Huron, Michigan. The Toronto car, which has no local significance and was never regauged from Toronto wide gauge, was deaccessed back in 2015 and it seems the car has finally found a taker. Halton County, which is already home to three 4600-series rebuilt PCC cars, is planning on moving car 4601 back north of the border sometime soon. The MTM announcement states that the intention is to restore the car. This is the latest example of an organization taking the positive step of deaccessing an unneeded piece of equipment that is using resources better applied elsewhere.

The TTC 4600s are an interesting subspecies of PCC. They were heavily overhauled by the TTC between 1986 and 1992, using class A-8 cars built by St. Louis for TTC in 1951 as the starting points. They were largely rebuilt in-kind, at least mechanically, and were painted in traditional colors for use on the Harbourfront Line. As such, when they were retired only a few years later in 1996, they were in excellent condition body-wise and were viewed as prime candidates for preservation. All 19 of the cars rebuilt for the 4600 program survive today, including two kept by TTC as heritage cars and six in regular heritage line service in Kenosha, WI. The remaining 11 cars ended up at museums: three at Halton County, one at MTM (soon to go to Halton County), two each at McKinney Avenue and National Capital, two at non-operating museums in Arizona, and one in Edmonton.

New York subway car being auctioned off

Now is your chance to have your very own New York subway car. NYCTA 9075, an R33-ML type car built in 1963, is being auctioned off by the Borough of Queens according to this article (and a few others). The article says that this is the last car of its kind, but that's manifestly not true, as there are at least ten other R33 cars in preservation and likely more knocking around the subway system. Car 9075's record has been updated to reflect that it's for sale, and with luck I'll find out who buys it and where it ends up going, even if it's into a scrap dumpster.

Some real money was put into plinthing this car back in 2005, including a substantial concrete pad, but it was probably inevitable that its owners would tire of maintaining it. I was surprised to see, in one of the photos, that at least part of the car's interior looks completely original (well, end-of-service original). I had thought it was being used as some sort of visitor's center, but perhaps it was just an exhibit piece. But electric cars put to uses like this usually have a finite shelf life (example). I'm surprised the relatively nearby MPB-54 chamber of commerce is still in use.

As an aside, if you're wondering why these cars are on the PNAERC list when cars on the ground (i.e. diners, private homes, and other "chicken coops") aren't, the reason is trucks. If a car is complete enough to retain its trucks and underbody, then I'll typically consider it sufficiently intact to be considered "preserved" even if it's in non-railroad use.

Oklahoma interurban car burned

Thanks to Andy Nold for confirming that Pittsburg County Railway 32 has, indeed, been destroyed by fire. The photo above was sent courtesy of John Myers. As such, the car has now been removed from the PNAERC list. It's too bad, as it was an attractive little interurban coach built by Niles in 1907. Its condition had been steadily deteriorating, though, and some years back the Southwest Missouri car next to it had rotted to the point of collapsing entirely. With PCR 32 now gone, there are only three electric cars on the PNAERC list in the state of Oklahoma: a Texas Electric freight trailer and two Birneys, one in Muskogee and one in Tulsa.

Another car headed to East Troy

East Troy is on an acquisition spree, as noted in this post from their Facebook page over the weekend (no log-in required). The next car on their list, due to arrive sometime later this month, is Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 162 (its owner will be updated once the car is physically moved). Following the recent dismantling of car 154, this is now one of two surviving cars from the North Shore's original order for steel cars, the other being car 160 at IRM. Car 162 was built by Brill in 1915 and retired from service when the North Shore quit in 1963. At that time it went to Niskayuna, New York, to be a part of the planned American Museum of Electricity. Unfortunately this project never got off the ground, and car 162 (and 710, which was scrapped last year) went to the Connecticut Trolley Museum in 1971.

It has sat there ever since, never operating (I believe it may have been stripped of some metal while in Niskayuna), but with a tarpaper roof that protected it somewhat better than car 710. Its condition is very rough, no doubt, but largely complete. Once restored, it would be the second North Shore interurban car at East Troy.

This also means that of the six electrics deaccessed by CTM in 2018 (article here), only two are really still in limbo: the mainline electrics, LIRR 4153 and CN 6714. Car 162 has now been sold, one CTA 'L' car and one North Shore car have been scrapped, and the other CTA car - CTA 4175 - is, according to photos taken a few weeks ago, still in partially-scrapped "can-opener victim" condition from last fall. But its ultimate fate can hardly be in doubt. Anyone interested in an MP54?

ON AN UNRELATED TOPIC... a comment was posted that Pittsburg County Railway 32, a wood interurban car body on display in McAlester, Oklahoma, has been destroyed by fire. Can anyone confirm or offer more details?

Removals

I decided it was time for a bit of spring cleaning on the PNAERC roster - and that means removing cars that probably shouldn't be on the list. First up is Tidewater Power Company 108, which has been on the list for a few years under the ownership of the Wrightsville Beach Museum of History in Wrightsville, NC. I'd added this car (with a notation that one end was missing) based on some less-than-ideal photos taken at the WBMoH, however I just came across this video which shows - at about the 1:40 mark - that in fact a lot more of the car than just one end is missing! It looks like the only parts there are one end and about half of one side of the car. Oops. There are a few cars on the list that have had their length reduced, or are missing an end, but if three-quarters of the car is gone then it doesn't qualify.

And then we come to a handful of cars that are parts of diners. The first is Bamberger 128, shown at the top of this post. This was one of the "Bullet" cars built for the Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville in 1932 and resold in 1939 to the Bamberger. Car 128 was one of three or four that were moved to the Trolley Square mall in 1972, but then in 1986 they were evicted when they'd outlived their usefulness. Car 128 was moved to Springville, UT, and became the Art City Trolley Restaurant. It's been on the PNAERC list forever, but it's been bothering me because by all rights it shouldn't be there - I don't consider cars that are part of buildings to be "preserved" even if their traction heritage is played up. And this one has been modified more than some. So for the sake of consistency, car 128 is now off the list, leaving just two of the Bamberger "Bullets" considered to be preserved.

And finally - for now - are Skagit River Railway 18 and 21, two ex-Oregon Electric wood interurban cars ensconced in a restaurant in Seattle. On the same note as Bamberger 128, these don't really qualify as "preserved" by the standards I've been using, any more than other "trolley diners" scattered around the country do. One of the cars especially is really buried in the building. Perhaps they will be rescued by a museum someday, but until then, they're off the list.

So there you go. But fear not! I'm still tracking these cars, and various others that don't qualify as "preserved," on my relatively new "non-preserved electric cars" Google sheet. If you know of an electric car body in your neck of the woods (or any other neck of the woods) that is missing from this list, drop me a line.

And if you notice another car on the list that doesn't seem like it fits the criteria, let me know about that too. Diners and the like - buildings that are built out of electric cars - generally don't qualify. However if the car is complete enough to still be on trucks, or if it's a museum display (think Tupelo or Gardner), then I consider it preserved.

Lackawanna 2628 Returns to New Jersey

It's a heavy news week - when it rains it pours! Less than a week after the plan was announced, Lackawanna MU car 2628 has returned to New Jersey from its 37-year home in Industry, New York. The Tri-State Railway Historical Society posted on their Facebook page (no log-in required) with photos of the car arriving at the Whippany Railway Museum in Whippany, NJ, including the photo above. Many thanks to Mike Dodge for bringing this news to my attention!

As mentioned recently, car 2628 is now owned by TSRHS* and they plan for it to be cosmetically restored and placed on display at the old DL&W Montclair, NJ, terminal. For the moment, since it's physically located at Whippany* along with (restored) fellow DL&W car 2454, its "owner" has been updated in PNAERC to the Whippany Railway Museum with a notation that the car is actually owned by TSRHS and is only being stored at WRM.*

*EDIT: Please note corrections here!

La Crosse city car saved

News has arrived that Mississippi Valley Public Service 56, a double-truck city car from La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been acquired for preservation by the East Troy Electric Railroad. The car is a new addition to the PNAERC roster, as it was formerly in private ownership in northern Wisconsin but details on its whereabouts and status were so sketchy that I'd never felt confident in adding it. Now, since its arrival at Phantom Woods yesterday, it definitely qualifies as preserved. Many thanks to ETER volunteer Eric Zabelny for the unloading photos.

Car 56 was built by St. Louis in 1916 for Wisconsin Railway Light & Power, which was later combined with the city system in Winona, MN and rechristened Mississippi Valley Public Service. It's a pretty interesting car - it strongly resembles cars built by St. Louis for Evanston Railway and Johnstown Traction, but this series was fitted with unusual St. Louis 109A maximum traction trucks. It also had K-51 controllers, a type which doesn't appear anywhere else on my list. It's one of three surviving cars from MVPS, but the only double-truck car - the other two are a La Crosse Birney (which, ironically, was deaccessed by East Troy 20 years ago and I believe is in storage in its hometown) and a Winona single-trucker that was the subject of a major and recently completed restoration in Excelsior, MN.

It's nice to see this car saved for preservation. And it's the first time in a while that one of the larger, established, operating trolley museums has acquired an unrestored car body for preservation. The practice was pretty common in the 1980s and 1990s, with Seashore (the "last roundup") and IRM (the rather less dignified "body snatchers") leading the way, but by my count the last time one of the larger trolley museums acquired an unrestored car body that wasn't already preserved elsewhere was 2013, when Edmonton acquired a Regina single-trucker. A number of bodies have been acquired in the interim by smaller organizations, from Hoosier Heritage and Old Pueblo to a gaggle of local history groups, but the larger museums have largely abandoned the acquisition of car bodies.