Winona streetcar in service

More good news comes from the Minnesota Streetcar Museum, and in particular from MSM's Excelsior site. It appears that Winona 10, subject of a restoration project stretching back over more than a decade, has been completed and cleared for public service. The car ran for the Heritage Rail Alliance meeting a couple of weeks ago and a photo (above) is now featured on the MSM website. As such, its condition has been appropriately updated in the PNAERC roster.

This is just the most recent of MSM's "chicken coop" restorations, joining Duluth 78 and Twin Cities 1239 (both also located at Excelsior) in that distinction. In fact, MSM now has fewer unrestored car bodies than restored ones, an admirable accomplishment! The Winona car was rebuilt using a truck acquired from Trolleyville that originally came from Lancaster, Ohio. It's what I would consider a pre-Birney single-trucker, meaning not simply that it was built before the Birney but that it's a transition design with an arched roof and steel or semi-steel construction. There aren't a lot of examples of these around and I think that this car may be the only one currently operational.