Thursday, November 24, 2016

Lafayette Birney preserved

Today's update to the database is an addition: the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville has added the body of a Birney from Lafayette, Indiana to its collection. Right now it's stored tarped on the museum's property. The car's number is unknown, unfortunately, but Lafayette only owned two groups of Birneys and both were built by Brill in 1922 - so at least this car's history can be narrowed down pretty closely.

One thing I'm not sure of is exactly when ITM acquired this car. It was apparently just in the last couple of years and may have been as recently as earlier this year. It's interesting that the museum acquired it at all; ITM hasn't operated any electric cars since the late 1990s and there hasn't been much restoration work done on electric equipment at the museum in some 15 years. But the acquisition of this car, which would obviously be a very expensive and involved restoration project, suggests that ITM management has not given up on the goal of preserving Indiana's traction history.

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