Savannah Birneys surface

Thanks to my father for forwarding this article about two Savannah, Georgia, Birney bodies that have surfaced. The cars were built into a house in Isle of Hope, just south of Savannah, and were discovered when the house was being torn down.

The Savannah system was almost entirely Birneys in later years, I believe. They had 30 Birneys built by St. Louis in 1922 and another eight built by American the following year. A number of the cars were resold as bodies upon retirement in 1946. These two cars look pretty rough, probably in worse shape than the two American-built cars preserved at the Savannah Roundhouse Museum. There's also a Savannah Birney buried in a seaside cabin on Tybee Island and possibly at least one other body preserved elsewhere.

The Isle of Hope Historical Association is currently fundraising to preserve these cars, though how exactly isn't entirely clear, nor is it clear when they stand to be removed from the site of the house (or whether they've already been removed). With so much unknown about these cars, and with preservation far from certain, I haven't added them to the PNAERC list - yet. I did add them on my "non-preserved list" (one of the links on the right side of this page if you're viewing in desktop mode). We'll try and stay tuned and see what happens.

North Texas Historic Transportation confirmed to be defunct

Many thanks to Andy Nold for confirming that the North Texas Historic Transportation group, which I believe had been functionally inoperative for some time, is officially defunct.

Until now, six cars had been listed as owned by NTHT, though the organization does not seem to have owned any of its own property, meaning the six cars were all scattered around the greater Fort Worth area on various other people's properties. Two of the six cars, Tandy Subway 1 and 4, have been scrapped. These two squared-off body rebuilt PCC cars had been stored in a parking lot in Fort Worth and had been offered for sale (see here), but found no takers and have now been cut up. Intriguingly, there may only be one "Winnebago" Tandy car left, the car McKinney Avenue owns and now has stored out of service. Two others, numbers 3 and 6, are on the PNAERC roster as being stored in Brookville, PA, but these may have been scrapped for parts already - I haven't been able to get confirmation one way or another.

The other four cars that were owned by NTHT are all ex-Northern Texas Traction car bodies which, evidently, still exist, and have presumably not been moved from their respective storage locations. There are two streetcars in Azle, Texas, northwest of Fort Worth; a freight motor in Benbrook, Texas, southwest of Fort Worth; and a double-truck Birney on private property within the city of Fort Worth. The PNAERC list has been updated to remove the two scrapped Tandy cars and to list the ex-NTT cars as being under private ownership in their respective locations. Any further information on the condition of these cars, or plans for their future, is always appreciated.

Corrections on Lackawanna 2628

Many thanks to Mike Del Vecchio, who contacted me to set the record straight regarding Lackawanna 2628. This 1930 MU motor car was moved from its home of some 35 years near Rochester, New York, back to home territory in New Jersey back in April as described in this post. At the time, I posted that the car was owned by the Tri-State Railway Historical Society and stored at the Whippany Railway Museum. 

However Mike points out that, in fact, neither of those things are true! The car is actually owned by a real estate developer in Montclair, NJ, called BDP Holdings LLC. This firm evidently owns (or is invested in) the former Lackawanna terminal building in Montclair, which is where 2628 will be put on display as part of a major redevelopment. TSRHS helped set up this whole plan, but does not own the car. Additionally, while 2628 was unloaded at Whippany, it's actually being stored on the Morristown & Erie Railway, whose tracks run past the Whippany museum. The car's PNAERC record has been updated to reflect these corrections. Thanks, Mike!

Muni rail grinder operates

Per this post on Facebook (no log-in required), the Western Railway Museum has returned its Muni rail grinder, SFMR 0109, to operational condition following a 30-year period out of service. The car's PNAERC record has been appropriately updated.

I'm not personally very familiar with 0109, but it's certainly a unique piece. It's one of only three surviving ex-Market Street Railway work cars. It's also one of only a dozen preserved rail grinders on the PNAERC list, and may (now) be the only operational rail grinder in a U.S. trolley museum.

North Shore 162 returns home

North Shore 162, shown in a photo posted by Rob Brogle to Facebook here (no login required), is back in home territory for the first time in nearly 60 years. It's been unloaded in Mukwonago, on the East Troy Electric Railroad, and will be held for future restoration. The car's PNAERC record has been appropriately updated to change its ownership from Connecticut Trolley Museum to ETER. It's in rough shape, but mostly complete and certainly restorable with enough work.

As I've mentioned before, East Troy has been on an acquisition spree lately. They're now up to 25 electric cars, plus a few freight cars that are not on the PNAERC list. But they're somewhat unusual among museums in that most of the preserved cars that passed through East Troy are not currently owned by ETER.

A while back, evidently when I had way too much time on my hands, I made this graph showing the electric cars that I know have passed through preservation in East Troy. The first group in East Troy was The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society. For a while it coexisted with the privately-owned Wisconsin Trolley Museum, which started out in North Prairie, Wisconsin, and then moved to East Troy and renamed itself the East Troy Electric Railroad. This was shortly after TWERHS was "evicted" from the actual East Troy-to-Mukwonago railroad, which was owned by the village of East Troy (confused yet?). In 1988-1989, TWERHS disbanded itself as a museum and sold off its entire collection, mostly to IRM. The size of ETER's collection has risen and fallen over the years. An impressive fleet of South Shore cars was amassed over time, while in the late 2000s and early 2010s there was an aggressive campaign to sell or scrap equipment. But at this point, ETER seems to be on firmer footing - it's no longer privately owned, but is rather run by a more typical nonprofit, and has a solid volunteer base.

As an aside, I should note that a few cars that were sold by TWERHS or ETER were later scrapped by other organizations, and those are shown in the chart as "sold" and not "scrapped." Only cars that were cut up in East Troy - or Mukwonago - are included in the "scrapped" category.

Pullman Electric Car Order List

Among the things that are always helpful in figuring out the histories of preserved electric cars are manufacturer order lists. Order lists for many of the major electric car manufacturers are here. And now, thanks to Bob Webber of the Pullman Library at the Illinois Railway Museum, we can add another. Bob has assembled a list of streetcar and interurban car orders placed with Pullman, located here:

Pullman Electric Car Order List

This list is in a Google Sheets spreadsheet and should be easily searchable. It's drawn from the Pullman electric car order book, which the company kept separate from its steam railroad orders, at least in the early years. For the most part it doesn't include mainline electrics, and does include subway cars, though this isn't 100% consistent.

Looking for information on a specific Pullman order? Contact IRM's Pullman Library to inquire about ordering plans, drawings, photographs, or other documents that may be available.

Charlotte 85 moved to Belmont

I'm a bit late on this one, but I came across a Facebook post from the Belmont Trolley group and noticed that a familiar-looking streetcar could be seen in the background. Sure enough, back on January 3rd of this year, Southern Public Utilities 85, the only preserved streetcar from Charlotte, NC, was moved to a new home in Belmont, NC. The photo above is from the Belmont Trolley Facebook page.

Charlotte 85 was built in 1927 and ran until retirement in 1938, at which point its body was sold. In 1993 the car body was retrieved by the Charlotte Trolley group, restored using trucks and electrical parts salvaged from Melbourne streetcars, and put into service (using a towed generator) on a short stretch of track in Charlotte. The right-of-way was later subsumed into the Charlotte light rail line, and for a brief period car 85 shared the light rail tracks, but at some point it was taken out of service and put into storage. In March 2016 it was sent to the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer.

In Belmont, it's currently stored in the city's public works building (along with two foreign single-truckers, an Oporto car and a Greek car that is itself another refugee from Charlotte Trolley). The plans are to rebuild it with some sort of battery-powered system so that it can run on a short tourist line on the north side of town. Car 85 has had its ownership updated and I've added Belmont Trolley to the PNAERC database, as this is their first domestic electric car acquisition.

For its part, NCTM in Spencer is still home to two electrics on the list - the P&N boxcab locomotive and a New Orleans streetcar in storage - as well as this thing, which is not currently on the list due to a lack of information on it.