Atlanta Subway Car Preserved in... Kingston?

The Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston had posted an enigmatic message on their Facebook page a few days ago hinting at a mysterious new acquisition, and today the curtain was pulled back to reveal - Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority 510, the newest arrival at TMNY. The photo above, taken by Marc Glucksman of River Rail Photo, shows the car being switched into the museum by their Brill doodlebug.

MARTA 510 is identical to MARTA 509, which was donated to the Southeastern Railway Museum in November as described here, and is from the system's original order for subway cars. It's a single-unit car, so it's double-ended, and appears to be preserved in complete condition. Car 509 had been in storage since 2007, so the same may be the case with 510 but I don't know; either way, it looks very nice and may have been spruced up by MARTA shop forces, as was the case with 509 before it went to SERM.

MARTA 510 seems a bit out of place at TMNY. Although the museum is no stranger to rapid transit equipment (before 510's arrival, six of the organization's nine electric cars were from the New York area rapid transit network), this is the only piece in its collection that isn't from New York or a state adjoining it.* In fact, it may be only the second piece of equipment TMNY has ever owned that isn't from the region around New York (after North Shore 411, which the organization sold off way back in 1973). However, the car appears to be in good condition; has likely benefitted from the milder Georgia climate and (presumably) lower career mileage than most subway cars from closer cities; and is far more weather-resistant than the museum's older cars, making it a better candidate for outdoor storage and display. There's nothing wrong with seeing a second Atlanta rapid transit car preserved.

*Except for some foreign cars, admittedly

New Type of LRV Preserved

The Western Railway Museum is the proud new owner of a 1995-vintage Los Angeles light rail vehicle, class P2020 car 164, shown above in an image from the WRM Facebook page. It arrived late last week and they've already put power to it, though I'm not sure whether it's "motivating" yet.

This is the second car from the Los Angeles light rail system to be preserved at a railway museum; car 144 was acquired by Southern California Railway Museum, nee Orange Empire, in 2018. For five years now, car 144 has been the newest piece of equipment on the entire PNAERC list, but of course now it's been supplanted by car 164. WRM's new car is very similar to the type P865 car at SCRM, but the 1995 order from Nippon-Sharyo for these cars included some additional automated train operation functionality.

WRM is also keeping up a steady pace of acquisitions - since 2020 they've now added five cars to their collection, more than any other trolley museum during that period. They also now have the distinction of being the only museum with three different types of LRVs (Boeing-Vertol LRV, Siemens U2, and Nippon-Sharyo P2020), and the only museum with LRVs from three different cities (San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles).

Boston Snow Plow Scrapped

Many thanks to Jordan Helzer for confirming that Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority 5122, a snow plow converted from a Type 3 semi-convertible built in 1908, has been scrapped. As noted here, the car was preserved at the Seashore Trolley Museum from 1995 to 2020 but that year it was sold (sans trucks, which were retained) to the Samuel Slater Experience in Webster, MA. This newly opened museum needed a streetcar for static display and 5122 was the first one chosen (the image above, showing the car being craned onto a truck for transport, is from Seashore's 2020 annual report).

Within months of acquiring the car, however, Samuel Slater Experience acquired a second car. This one, a heavily rebuilt Los Angeles Railway single-trucker, is far from local but was acquired in more-or-less complete condition and with an excellent cosmetic appearance. It has since been installed in the museum's building in Webster. I had tried reaching out to SSE to inquire about car 5122, with no luck, but Jordan has found that the plow's body has indeed been cut up. It has now been removed from the PNAERC roster.

This is not a huge loss. There are five other Type 3 cars still in existence, all of them at Seashore, including one or two that were much less heavily rebuilt than 5122 and at least one that in recent years has been kept in operational condition and used regularly as a switching locomotive.

Muni Double-Ender Update

Thanks to Olin Anderson for pointing out that Muni 1007 has finally entered service, some time after returning from a major rebuild at Brookville. (The above image is a frame from this video taken in late 2021 during testing.) The car now wears elaborate 1949-era Red Arrow colors rather than the simplified 1960s-era livery it formerly wore (visible on 1007's PNAERC page), which of course is a tremendous improvement. And with basically the same lines as actual Red Arrow 1949 "St. Louies," the car looks just right. Its status has been updated, and since it has presumably been rebuilt with Brookville standard PCC-type equipment, its former GE motor and control info has been removed.

Speaking of actual Red Arrow "St. Louies," the Market Street Railway blog post here sheds some light on the two cars of that series currently owned by Muni: Red Arrow cars 18 and 21. Both of these cars were owned by Branford from 1982 until 2017, at which time they were moved to Brookville, PA, where they remain in storage. The plan was to rebuild them - possibly with PCC trucks and equipment - as additional double-ended equipment for Muni service. However the blog post states that these plans will likely not happen because, due to differences in truck spacing compared with actual Muni PCCs, the two Red Arrow cars don't meet San Francisco clearance restrictions. There's no change to their PNAERC status, but it sounds very much like Muni may be looking to dispose of this pair at some point in the future.

Cleveland Transit System 109 Runs

Congratulations to the Northern Ohio Railway Museum on getting their fourth car, and second passenger car, running. They announced on their Facebook page (no log-in required) that Cleveland Transit System 109 was made operational under its own power this week for the first time since arriving at NORM in 2013. The photo above is from the museum's Facebook post. Car 109's status has been updated in the PNAERC roster.

CTS 109 is one of 18 single-unit "Bluebird" cars built for the opening of the system's heavy rail rapid transit line in 1955 by St. Louis Car Company (there were also 35 married-pair sets of largely identical cars in the 200-series). Three of the single-unit cars still exist: 112, which has been at NORM for 35 years and is complete but deteriorated; 113, an ex-Trolleyville car now at Seashore in similar condition; and car 109. This example, by far the nicest of the preserved "Bluebirds," was retained by its home system as a historic car and was stored in good repair under Terminal Tower for many years. It came to NORM in 2013 along with two of the museum's other three operating cars, Shaker Heights historic car 12 and Shaker Heights line car 024. And kudos to NORM on their plan to retain 109's pantograph (though it will need to be raised) rather than replacing it with trolley poles.

Another round of Seashore deaccessions

Seashore is continuing with a program of thinning their collection. Following the deaccession of two cars in July and a third in November, they've just announced plans to "re-home" an additional six cars. So get your shopping lists ready - here's what's slated to leave Kennebunkport, one way or another:

First up is Laconia Street Railway 17, shown here in a photo from the Seashore announcement taken within the past week. It's the body of a double-truck wooden streetcar built in 1901 by - you guessed it - hometown car builder Laconia, and according to my notes is technically privately owned but has been stored on the ground at Seashore since 2001. At one time it was a very nice example of an early double-truck New England city car (in-service photo here) but as can easily be seen, it's in rough shape. Supposedly it's one of two Laconia Street Railway cars in existence, but the status of the other - a Birney body at Warehouse Point - is uncertain and that car may have been scrapped.

Next up is Newport & Providence 9, shown here in a 2019 Scott Linscott photo. Open car bodies are always kind of insubstantial, but this one is less solid than most, and sources suggest it collapsed over one of its trucks last year. Another Laconia product, it was built in 1904 and was a house in Newport after retirement. It was at the Old Colony & Fall River Railroad Museum for a time in the 1980s and came to Seashore in 1990. Oddly enough, sister car 8 was also turned into a house and is not only still in situ, it's an AirBnB!

Virginia Electric Power 194 is next, shown here in a 2022 photo from the Seashore announcement. This car was built in 1911 by the Southern Car Company for the Richmond & Henrico, joining the Richmond city system three years later. It's one of just five Southern electric cars still in existence and the only surviving streetcar from Richmond that isn't a Birney. Its design is a bit unusual, sporting an early arched roof and all-wood construction but with steel-sheathed sides (in-service photo of identical car). It's also a body, though, and is pretty badly wracked in addition to missing most of one end.

Next on the list is another car from the Old South, Mobile Light & Railroad 49, shown here in a 2022 photo from the Seashore announcement. It's the body of a single-truck streetcar built in 1930 by Perley Thomas. It's unfortunate that the car is in such wretched shape because it's kind of significant, actually. Seashore says it's the last single-truck streetcar ever built in the U.S., which I believe. It's also a rare example of a single-truck Perley Thomas car and it's the only streetcar preserved from Mobile I've been able to identify (a second car is supposed to be stored in a warehouse in its home city but I haven't been able to find much information on it). If you're wondering what exactly you're looking at in the above photo, the end of the car fell off or was removed and has been stowed inside the body. An in-service photo of this series can be found here.

Things could be worse, though. Next on the list is Ottawa Transportation Commission 825, shown here in a 2020 photo from the Seashore announcement. A once-handsome deck-roof double-truck car built in 1923 by (who else) Ottawa Car Manufacturing Company, today car 825 is just a shell - and not much of a shell at that. The car's deck roof collapsed into the car body sometime in the late 2010s and the Seashore announcement notes that the car's frame is broken. Like N&P 9, this car probably isn't leaving Kennebunkport intact. This car is the only example of its series preserved, however Ottawa cars 854 and 859 are extremely similar and are preserved intact in Canada.

The last electric being "re-homed" in this round is Boston Elevated Railway 3608, a side dump motor built by Differential in 1926. It's one of three side-dump motors from Boston in the Seashore collection and is a bit unusual; built using equipment from an older dump car, it has Taylor trucks rather than the usual Diffco arch bars. It's the only car in this deaccession round that isn't a body, the only one that is a work car, and the only one from Boston. It's been at Seashore since 1954, longer than most trolley museums have existed.

The "re-homing" document also includes South Shore 32, which was part of the July 2022 deaccession round, but doesn't include LIRR 4137 or MBTA 3283, also deaccessed in 2022. I'm not sure whether they've found takers or whether they've already been disposed of. And there are some non-electric pieces in the latest deaccession round, including a 46-foot long wooden caboose and a URTX reefer.

Historic Railway Restoration

Many thanks to Vince Mendenhall, co-owner of Historic Railway Restoration, for sending a full roster of their collection. I'm very appreciative of the chance to correct some errors and omissions I had; coming up with solid information on privately owned collections can be difficult, so this is a big help.

The short version is, the HRR roster has gone from four cars to six. One car formerly listed, Tacoma Birney 219, has been removed; it appears that was an erroneous listing. Another car that's been on the list for a while, Tacoma Birney 326, was formerly at the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society but is now owned by HRR, so its owner has been updated.

Then we get to the fun stuff: additions to the list! The first car at HRR that hadn't been on the list previously is Everett, WA Birney 5, a very early example of the type built in 1917 by American. Everett actually ended up with the very first Birney ever built (at least, according to the late Dr. Harold Cox, the authority on Birneys), a car built in late 1916, and car 5 was constructed just a year later. It ran in its home city for just six years, after which it was transferred to Tacoma. It's the only streetcar from Everett known to be preserved.

The second newly added HRR car is Tacoma "turtleback" 202, a double-truck city car built in 1912 by Cincinnati. I believe it's the car pictured in this article from about 15 years ago, suggesting it's not in great shape. It is significant, though; of four Tacoma streetcars on the PNAERC list, this is the only one that isn't a Birney. (That said, there's a mystery "turtleback" body stored at the Ballard Terminal Railroad in Seattle that I haven't been able to identify, so that could be a second Tacoma car of this type.)

It should also be mentioned that HRR has been involved with a couple of cosmetic restoration projects involving Washington state electric cars. Bellingham Birney 360, formerly listed (erroneously) as having been restored for the Helen Loggie Museum, was actually restored cosmetically by HRR for the City of Bellingham and is now in storage there awaiting completion of a display building. Tacoma Birney 324 is the car actually restored for the Helen Loggie Museum by HRR (post-restoration photo above courtesy Vince Mendenhall), and it has been moved to Bellingham for storage while "The Loggie" constructs a display pavilion.