It's time for more mystery streetcars! Today I'm turning my attention to a pair of streetcars preserved at the Ballard Terminal Railway in Seattle. The Ballard Terminal, whose owner I believe also owns these two cars, has a very short "yard" just off of West 45th Street in Seattle which consists of a single curving siding. At the end of the siding sits an Oporto single-trucker, but I'm not particularly interested in that car because it doesn't qualify for inclusion in the PNAERC list. However on the ground along the fence are two car bodies that probably do qualify: a Birney and a double-truck turtleback roof car of (presumably) Stone & Webster design. They're visible on Google aerial photos and the roof of the double-trucker can be seen on Google Street View.
So... anyone know what these cars are? I know that Seattle Municipal Railway had both turtleback-roof cars and Birneys, as did - I believe - Tacoma Railway & Power. Both of those lines can boast of only a single Birney body currently on the PNAERC list so assuming the two Ballard cars are local they are fairly significant.
Frank,
ReplyDeleteLooking at the Chicken Coop listing, Ben Minnick lists two Tacoma car bodies in Seattle that fit your description.
http://www.erha.org/coop_files/coopw.htm
Wesley
Thanks for the link! That may be one of the sources that led me to the cars. I am hoping to find a bit more information on these cars - fleet numbers, builder or year, who the owner is, something - so that I can add them to the database with at least skeletal data.
ReplyDeleteA contact at the Ballard Terminal also supports the Tacoma heritage of the car bodies.
ReplyDeleteWesley
Here’s the link to a picture of the last streetcar left in the yard at Ballard. The Oporto trolley has been moved to Snoqualmie and is being rebuilt with parts from another streetcar (from MATA?) to resemble a streetcar used in Yakima for YVT.
ReplyDeletehttp://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=5559657