Linear Induction Motor Cars Preserved

A post on the Transit Toronto Facebook page here has revealed that two cars from Toronto's Scarborough RT rapid transit line, which closed in 2023, have found their way to the Halton County Radial Railway. The cars are TTC 3026 and TTC 3027, a married-pair set of "people mover"-type automated cars built in 1986 by UTDC. Not only were these cars built for automated, or driverless, operation, but they were built to use linear induction motors. As such, they don't have normal traction motors geared to the axles, but they still have electric motors that move them along the track. There's one other car of this general type (actually, a nearly identical car built by UTDC in 1982 for Vancouver) on the PNAERC list, described here when I added it to the list a year or so ago.

As for cars 3026 and 3027, they're standard gauge, which means they can't roll on Halton County's track. For the moment, they're stored on panel track in the maintenance building. Supposedly, one will be preserved and the other will be disposed of, though I'm not sure which. With these two cars added, Halton County's up to 56 cars listed on PNAERC, while the entire list stands at 2,089 cars.

I was able to find more information about these cars (albeit from Wikipedia) than I was on the Vancouver car that's on the list, but I could still use more information. Technical details are always appreciated.

Two More M&H Cars Heading to a New Home

More good news about cars at the Middletown & Hummelstown finding new homes: the Rockhill Trolley Museum has announced on their website that they are planning to acquire two of the more historic cars in the M&H collection.

The first, shown above in 2017, is Lewistown & Reedsville 23, a center-entrance interurban car built by Brill in 1914. This is probably the single rarest car in the M&H traction collection. It was built for Jersey Central Traction in Perth Amboy, NJ, making it the last surviving New Jersey interurban car, but only ran there a brief time before it was sold to the L&R. There, it operated until retirement in 1933. For nearly 70 years it was a cottage near Lewistown but it was moved in 2002 and sat outside for a decade or so (it's visible on Street View!). When its owner sold it around 2016, it was Wendell at the M&H who snagged it. The car has been stored inside since then and the body appears to be solid. The L&R was the second-closest traction line to Orbisonia/Rockhill Furnace, so RTM is a natural home and the car is about as local for them as they're going to find.

The second car, shown here, is York Railways 162. This is a curve-side suburban car built by Brill in 1924, one of a handful of curve-siders that company built before they were compelled by Cincinnati Car Company to quit doing that. Car 162 and its identical sister, car 163, were retired in 1939 and both were turned into summer cottages. Car 163 has been beautifully restored by RTM, but nevertheless the museum plans on preserving car 162. Their plan, however, is to preserve it as a cottage rather than restore it as a streetcar.

Kudos to RTM and the M&H for working to ensure a future for both of these rather historic pieces.

Muni PCC Available

The Fox River Trolley Museum announced today on Facebook that they are deaccessing two pieces of equipment and making them available to other museums. One of the two pieces is on the PNAERC list: San Francisco Municipal Railway 1030, a "Baby Ten" PCC built by St. Louis Car Company in 1951 as part of the last domestic order for PCC cars ever built. The car came to FRTM in 1983, after it was retired, and ran a few times but was quickly stored because its single-ended setup doesn't work well for the museum's operations. The car is complete, but its poor condition after four decades of outdoor storage may make it challenging to find a taker. It is one of nine cars of this series still in existence (not counting the infamous double-ended Franken-PCC). Of those nine, two have been fully restored: car 1016, beautifully restored to as-built condition at Rio Vista, and car 1040, fully restored to original livery but with some modern accoutrements to permit regular operation on home turf on Muni's F Line. The remaining six cars are all owned by Muni and are in storage; given that they recently scrapped an additional three of this type, it seems unlikely they'd want this one.

Though it's not on the PNAERC list, the other car deaccessed by FRTM is likely more historic than car 1030 by virtue of being unique. It's a flat car built for Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee piggyback service. There are three CNS&M piggyback flats still in existence, but this is the only one from the railroad's second order for longer 60' cars; the other two, one at the Illinois Railway Museum and one at the National Museum of Transportation, are both 40' cars.

An 80 for PTM

Following the recent post on the Middletown & Hummelstown, Scott Becker from the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum sent some welcome news: car 83, shown here (all photos are courtesy Scott Becker), is going to PTM! The museum hopes to move the car by the end of the year and is currently fundraising for the acquisition here. Donations are cheerfully accepted!

From the photos Scott sent, the car appears to be remarkably solid given how many years it has sat outside. It has stayed tarped that entire time, though, and doesn't appear to have suffered from broken windows or other vandalism. This car is from the second order for 80-series cars placed by Red Arrow, so that will give PTM examples of both series: car 78 from the first order has been beautifully restored to as-built condition, complete with full-height end windows, and operates regularly as shown below. The museum also plans to restore car 83 to a later era as a contrast with car 78.

Thanks to Scott for sending this news!

A Visit to Middletown

Many thanks to Richard Schauer, who was in Middletown visiting the Middletown & Hummelstown this past week and sent along roster shots he snapped of almost the entire traction collection. The M&H has been in a period of transition following the death of owner Wendell Dillinger last year, but it seems that plans for at least a few pieces in the collection are starting to be established.

Let's start with the core of the traction collection, the cars stored inside the barn.

The first two photos show Red Arrow 77, a 1932 Brill suburban car. Many thanks to Bill Wall and Scott Becker, who wrote to point out that car 77 is the one inside the building and 83 is outside, rather than the other way around! I'll need to correct my photo assignments on the PNAERC roster. These "80-series" cars were generally known as Master Units but used the newer body style Brill adopted around this time; this look was also closer to what the Indianapolis Master Units used. This car is apparently under restoration; the railroad hopes to fix it up and use it on slow days instead of the diesel-hauled passenger train. Its condition has been updated.

Next is South Brooklyn Railway 9425, an open-platform freight motor built in 1903 just a quarter mile away at the Middletown Car Company. This car was acquired, due to its local connection of course, in 1992 from Branford.

The next two photos show Kansas City Public Service 2, a 1948 product of GE that is possibly the last "interurban-type" steeplecab ever built. It later went to the Hutchinson & Northern before being bought by Wendell, who had it stored at the Iowa Terminal for a number of years. This locomotive looks significantly better than the last time I saw it, and has been mostly stripped and primed.

York Railways 162, shown here, is the identical sister to York Railways 163, which was beautifully restored from roughly similar condition by the Rockhill Trolley Museum. These two cars comprise two-thirds of the extant York Railways cars. Car 162 is a body, but surprisingly little rust or significant body rot is evident in these photos. The car was built by Brill in 1924; after building these cars and a handful of other orders, including some cars for Zanesville, Ohio, Brill was sued by the Cincinnati Car Company and compelled to stop building curve-side cars.

This is Brooklyn Rapid Transit 4550, one of three semi-convertibles of this general type in existence. It was built by Laconia in 1906 in the same order as car 4573 at Branford, but this car is incomplete and suffered from years of outdoor storage before being cosmetically fixed up. This car is the second-most-recent addition to the M&H traction collection, having arrived in 2000 after a two-decade stint at Station Square in Pittsburgh.

And the most recent addition to the M&H traction fleet is Lewistown & Reedsville 23, an extremely historic center-entrance interurban car body built by Brill in 1914. I believe this is the last surviving interurban car from the state of New Jersey, though it only ran in the Garden State for a year or so before its original owner sold it to the L&R. As for that line, it has the distinction of being the second-closest electric railway to the present-day Rockhill Trolley Museum. Only the modest streetcar system in Huntingdon, PA, was closer.

And then there are two electric cars that aren't on the PNAERC list because they're not from North America. These are both 1909-vintage Rio de Janeiro open cars imported in the 1960s. The top one is an unrestored double-truck car numbered 1719; the lower one, 441, is a single-truck car that has been kept in operational condition for at least the last five decades. For years this car ran regularly at the RELIC Trolley Museum (aka the Railway Equipment Leasing & Investment Corporation) until Wendell moved it out to the M&H. It has run there a number of times using a towed generator. I believe this was one of just two single-truckers that arrived as part of the big Rio open car shipment; the other one was destroyed in a factory fire in Allentown, PA, not many years after arriving in the States.

Now that we've toured the barn, let's head outside!

This is the second 80-series Red Arrow car at the M&H, car 83. EDIT: I formerly had this listed as car 77; see note above under that car. Car 83 arrived at the M&H numbered 86; Bill Wall relates that near the end, SEPTA swapped the numbers of these two cars because it was an easier way to keep the better car in service and send the worse car to scrap. Richard was told that this car is to be scrapped for parts to keep other cars of this type in museums operational. EDIT: This is evidently untrue - this car is planned to go to a different museum for preservation. Thanks to Bill Wall for the correction! This series has fared well in preservation; including car 77, there are five others besides this one in museums, two of which have been fully restored and see regular use.

This is SEPTA 2095, a standard 1948 PCC from Philadelphia.

Next to it is SEPTA 2725, another typical Philadelphia PCC, this one built in 1947.

And further down on the same track is SEPTA 2104, built as part of the same order as 2095. The current plan, evidently, is to scrap one of these three cars and retain one or both of the other two for display. Which car will draw the short straw wasn't clear, and may not have been decided yet.

The other piece of Philadelphia street railway equipment on site is SEPTA C121, shown here, a big double-truck snow sweeper built by Brill in 1923. Not counting a couple of derelicts and an example that has been heavily modified, there are six sweepers of this type in preservation, two of which operate. I'm not really clear on this car's ownership history; according to my notes, it was bought by the M&H straight from SEPTA, but the timing seems a bit odd. Any information is appreciated.

SEPTA 476 is half of a married-pair set of "spam cans" built by St. Louis in 1951 for the Chicago Transit Authority. This car was originally CTA 6069 and it was sold in 1987 to SEPTA for use on the Norristown line, which was experiencing a severe car shortage due to accidents and equipment failures.

On the left is the mate to 476, SEPTA 477. This car was built as, surprise surprise, CTA 4070. To the right is another CTA alumnus, work motor S371. These two undoubtedly encountered each other many times between the 1950s and 1970s on the 'L' in Chicago.

Car S371 was built by Cincinnati in 1924 as 4397. It was rebuilt as a work motor in 1972, and in 1979 it was retired and sold to the Buckingham Valley Trolley Association, probably as a parts source. They sold it to the M&H around 1985. This car is to be scrapped in the near future.

The M&H is also home to a second CTA work motor, car S372, shown here. This car was built by Cincinnati as 4399, but the rest of its history is identical to S371. Like its compatriot, this car is to be scrapped in the near future; in fact, that work may be underway as I write this. Remarkably, for as many 4000-series CTA 'L' cars converted to S-series work motors as were originally saved, these two comprise fully half the extant examples. Once they're gone, only S373 at IRM and S374 at Northern Ohio - neither accessioned and both in poor condition - will remain of the 4000 work motor fleet.

While we're on the topic of cars to be scrapped imminently, this is Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority 3323, a double-ended PCC built by Pullman-Standard in 1945. It was originally Dallas Railway & Terminal 605 and was sold to Boston in 1958. It was stored at Branford from retirement in 1980 until 1992, when it came to the M&H as part of the same deal that saw the South Brooklyn freight motor transferred. This car is clearly in bad shape and was designated for disposal more than five years ago, so it's been on borrowed time for a while. The world's supply of ex-Dallas PCCs has been shrinking, and once this car and a similarly rough car in Windber are gone, the only one of the type located outside of Kennebunkport will be a single example at Warehouse Point.

Finally, there's the M&H fleet of high-roof Lackawanna MU trailers. Please contain your excitement.

M&H 343 is ex-Lackawanna 3343, the lace curtain car.

M&H 366 is ex-Lackawanna 4366.

M&H 302 is ex-Lackawanna 4302.

M&H 352 is ex-Lackawanna 4352.

And the cab car (I'm not sure whether it's the only functioning cab car and/or the only one fitted with ditch lights), M&H 329, is ex-Lackawanna 3329. What push-pull operation isn't enhanced by a plastic lobster to ride the head end of the shove?

Denver Peter Witt Saved

It's getting less common for the big trolley museums to add car bodies "found in the wild" to their collections, but smaller museums and individual collectors are picking up the slack. Earlier this week, an individual in Cheyenne, Wyoming, who operates a contract restoration business under the name High Plains Railroad Preservation, acquired and moved Denver Tramways 842. The car, shown above en route to its new home, is a single-ended Peter Witt built in the DT shops in 1924. As far as I can tell, after it was retired at the end of the streetcar era in Denver, it was made into a cabin near Fort Collins, Colorado. There it sat until this week. It's now the most modern of the nine streetcars from Denver on the PNAERC list, even though its construction appears to be entirely of wood with just steel sheathing - not exactly cutting-edge for 1924! It's clearly in rough shape, but HPRP has recently completed a stunning cosmetic restoration of Denver Tramways .04 - owned by the City of Arvada, but for the moment listed on PNAERC under HPRP because that's its physical location - so a bright future for car 842 isn't particularly unlikely. The PNAERC list now stands at a total of 2,087 cars.

Birney Goes on Display in Bellingham

I just happened upon this article in the Cascadia Daily News, from a couple of months ago, that details the placement of Tacoma Railway & Power 324 on display in Bellingham, Washington. The car is owned - and, now, is located adjacent to - the Helen Loggie Museum of Art in Bellingham, which is a fairly new organization housed in the city's historic Washington Territorial Courthouse building. Information on this car comes from Tom and Vince Mendenhall, who restored its body on behalf of the Loggie Museum as detailed here. The car has been placed under an attractive canopy that affords an unobstructed view from the street. Car 324's status has been updated to "displayed inoperable."

P.S. Anyone know what the significance of the "704" placard on the end of the car might be? It looks a bit like a New York subway car number board, but I'm mystified as to its role on this car.