Update from Branford

Thanks to Bill Wall, who has sent along an update of recent progress in the shop at Branford:

First news item is the reappearance of Montreal Tramways locomotive 5002, which was flooded in 2011 and 2012 by Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. The motors have been redone and while they were out the opportunity taken to rebuild the very worn out trucks. With a newly made center plate, new old stock Red Arrow center door wheels replacing the cracked or broken tiny pie plate wheels, an armature rewound and other work, 5002 hasn't been this good mechanically since it was built. Another one brought back to life...

Thanks to the Amherst Railway Society for their grant supporting this 1917 homebuilt steeplecab.

Connecticut Company car 775 has had the majority of its rattan seats redone just in time for the 125th anniversary (7/31)  of the opening of the original Branford Electric Railway on the very route that is now our museum line. A total of 10 bottoms and 10 seat backs were redone with new material, courtesy of combining two grants from the Mass. Bay RRE and the NRHS, along with some internal support. A special thanks to both organizations for helping to make this happen. Attached you will find some photos of before and after the work was done. 

Ed. note: A how-to guide to restoring rattan seats, written by Bob Yohe of Branford and provided by Bill Wall, is posted on our sister blog Hicks Car Works here.

First Portland LRV Preserved

Thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski for forwarding along this link announcing that TriMet (MAX) 101, the first light rail vehicle built for the Portland light rail system, has been moved to the Oregon Electric Railway Museum for preservation. The image above is a screen grab from the video posted on the museum's Facebook page.

Car 101 was built by Bombardier in 1983, making it the first Bombardier-built LRV in preservation. It underwent some testing in Pueblo, Colorado, in late 1983 before delivery to Portland the following year and entry into service in 1986. The Portland light rail system was the third modern system of its type to open in the US, following San Diego in 1981 and Buffalo (which was intended to be a heavy-rail subway but morphed into a hybrid light rail system when funding ran short) in 1984.

I've also added a new top-level "car type" classification to the PNAERC list. Until now, I've been classifying LRVs as rapid transit cars, but I've just created a new "light rail vehicle" classification. There are now 14 LRVs on the list, including seven San Diego U2 cars, four 1970s-era Boeing SLRVs, and three one-offs, including TriMet 101. OERHS also joins Western Railway Museum and Southern California Railway Museum as the only organizations to roster LRVs of multiple types, though WRM still leads the way with three different types of LRV (and from three different systems, no less).

CTA Budds Back from the Dead

The CTA has been maintaining an historic fleet for about a decade or so now, and it has recently comprised one pair of 1920s-era Cincinnati-built 4000s, two pairs of 1950s-era St. Louis-built 6000s, one pair of 1969 Budd-built 2200s, and three pairs of 1970s-era Boeing-built 2400s. But a second pair of 2200s is now back from the dead! Married-pair cars 2231 and 2232 have been retrieved from Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, where they were shipped in 2012 following retirement for use in training, and have returned to Chicago. The news was reported here, along with the above photo, courtesy of LaQuan Miller.

That brings the size of the CTA historic fleet up to 16 cars. That's far smaller than the New York historic fleet, of course, but it's enough to represent every major class of 'L' car used in Chicago since the dawn of the steel car era - no minor feat.

PCC Going Up for Auction in California

The story behind this post from May seems to be confirmed - per this website, the Bright's Pioneer Museum collection in Le Grand, California, is going to be sold at the end of October in an online auction. Individual lots haven't been listed yet, but a couple of the photos (including the one reproduced here) prominently show Muni PCC 1150, so you can be pretty confident it will be in the auction along with the rest of the stuff.

I have no idea what will happen to 1150, of course - and I'm not even sure whether I'll know after the auction what ended up happening to it - but it would be nice if the car went to a good home. From the photo, it looks practically pristine, without even flaking paint - just some dust and dirt.

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!