IC "Highliners" added

I've added a total of fourteen (!) recently-preserved "Highliner" double-deck MU cars from the Illinois Central's Chicago suburban electrification to the roster. Of those, ten have been acquired by the Museum of the American Railroad in Frisco, Texas for use as classroom cars. They were moved to Texas in early 2016 and are currently in storage, though I'm not certain whether they're at the Frisco site or stored somewhere nearby. The other four cars were acquired in mid-2015 by the Illinois Railway Museum, which intends to retain two and scrap the others for parts. Which ones will be kept has not yet been determined, and for the time being all four are stored on the IRM campus. As of a couple of weeks ago, work had begun on inspecting these cars and making them operational. Car 1534 was the first to be inspected and had the honor of becoming the first "Highliner" to run in preservation (as far as I know, though there are some in Boone that are potential runners).

CTA "High performance car" acquired by Seashore

Today's news involves a new acquisition of an old car. Chicago Transit Authority car number 1, which for many years has been stored moribund on the property of General Electric in Erie, PA, was recently purchased by the Seashore Trolley Museum. Today it arrived at Kennebunkport courtesy of Silk Road Transportation. This car is the last of the "high performance" 6000-series cars that the CTA owned, a sub-group of eight cars (four single units and two married pairs) that received modifications for high speed operation. It was sold to GE in the 1970s for use as a test car and was later fitted with more modern control equipment, but the body is largely unchanged from its later Skokie Swift configuration, complete with rooftop bow trolleys. The car will need quite a bit of work but it's a unique artifact and it's commendable that Seashore has stepped up to see it preserved.

Missing MU car

Today's "mystery car" is one of the many Lackawanna MU cars that have found their way into preservation. In this case, I'm wondering about car 4308 (Pullman, 1920) which was last seen at the Michigan Air-Line Railway in Walled Lake, MI northwest of Detroit in 2010. Supposedly the car was sold around that time via Ozark Mountain but I have been unable to figure out who bought it or where it went. As always, information is much appreciated.

12/6/2023 UPDATE: This website has a roster of Michigan Air-Line that says car 4308 was never used in service, but rather was a parts source, and was scrapped in 2010. Since that fits with the (scant) information I've been able to dig up, I'm going to say this mystery is solved and the car has been scrapped.

AEM7 preserved, shuffling in San Diego

It's not exactly "news" that the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania acquired an Amtrak AEM7 - it was just about a year ago that it happened - but I have now gotten around to having the PNAERC list reflect that. Amtrak 915 is now included, though I'm still short some technical data on its control, brakes and motors.

And in other news, I've updated the status of several electric cars in San Diego that have been shuffled around. "California car" 54 was acquired by the San Diego Electric Railway Association last year and moved from Balboa Park to their National City site, where it is now stored next to the depot there. SDERA also acquired an ex-St. Louis, ex-Muni PCC which had originally been slated for rebuilding and use on the San Diego Vintage Trolley heritage operation. As for SDVT, it has lost the aforementioned car but gained ex-Newark 10 which was rebuilt out east and is already in service painted up as car 530. Another ex-St. Louis car was already assigned the number 530, so I'm not sure what the plans for that car are at the moment. There are also two ex-Philadelphia PCC cars on hand which I believe are intended for rebuilding and use in the SDVT operation.

Today's "mystery cars"

During the ongoing project of going through and double-checking all of the listings, I've been coming across some "mystery cars" - in this case, equipment that I know was around until recently but which I've managed to lose track of.

Today I'm looking for information on two of the three Pittsburgh PCC cars that until 2013 or so were at Power Superconductor in New Castle, PA. The cars in question are Pittsburgh PAT 1734 and 1773, both 1949 St. Louis cars. The former car, 1734, was donated to the Youngstown Steel Heritage Museum in 2013 but I haven't been able to find any evidence that it was moved. The other car, 1773, I can't find any information on at all.

UPDATE 3/2019: It turns out that car 1734 has been moved to Ellwood City, PA by the owner of the company in New Castle for restoration. It's also been confirmed that 1773 was scrapped for parts. Click here for more details.

A third car, 1705, was acquired by Midwest Electric Railway Museum in Mount Pleasant, IA and was moved there in 2013; I believe it's currently in storage.

First blog post

As I write this post, the new and improved PNAERC site is in beta test mode. The site's webmaster, Jeff Hakner, has completely redesigned the backend of the site and from now on we will be able to make changes to any listing at any time. I am going through and correcting any data that got mangled during the data transfer, after which I will be going back through the blog again to update and correct photo and video links.

I'm also making changes and updates, which going forward will be the raison d'etre for this blog. Today I added two recently-preserved cars to the list, both Duewag U2 LRV's from San Diego. Car 1017 was acquired earlier this year by the Western Railway Museum while car 1008 was acquired by Orange Empire. Both have been added to the PNAERC list, joining cars 1018 and 1019 which were already there.

Help needed: I am still looking for mechanical information on these San Diego U2 cars to fill in the gaps, so any assistance with this is appreciated!