Halton County updates

A week and a half ago was Winterfest, the annual gathering of (mainly east coast) trolley museum volunteers, and this time it was at Halton County. Blog posts from the Weakly Reports (PTM) and Hicks Car Works (IRM) blogs both reveal that TTC snow plow TP-11, until now listed as "under restoration," is indeed very much in service following its time in the Halton workshop.

There are a couple of other updates. CTA 48 is out of service due to motor issues but is on prominent public display. TTC subway cars 5098 and 5099 are likewise not operating currently but are on display and open for visitors. The PNAERC list has been updated accordingly.

Savannah Birneys

There were a lot of cities in the south that had small street railway systems; many never ran anything bigger than a single-truck car. Most of these lines quit rather early so preserved cars from them are rare (though that's largely true of small-town systems in the north as well). One exception is Savannah, though to be sure it was a larger streetcar system than many.

Some 15 years ago I had the chance to visit the Savannah Roundhouse Museum, in the old Central of Georgia shops in that city, and at the time there were two Birney bodies from Savannah there. The first, which was in good condition, was car 636, built by American in 1923. A photo taken of car 636 in 2011, but looking largely the same as I remember it a few years earlier, is online here:

Savannah 636 is on the PNAERC list and has been for years. Then there was a second Birney body, this one in pretty wretched shape, sitting outside. No car number was evident. I did track down a photo of this car taken in 2008:

So that leads me to today, when I stumbled across a lengthy treatise here about street railway systems in Georgia. It's kind of interesting but what intrigued me in particular was that on page 111 there was a list of Georgia streetcars known to survive. And it included two Savannah Birneys at the roundhouse museum: cars 636 and (drum roll) 630. Could the cadaver pictured above be the 630?

Answer: well, maybe. But I don't think so. That's because it appears there's a third Savannah Birney in the mix at the roundhouse museum. Check out this photo, taken in 2011 just a few months after the shot of 636:

Could this be the 636? Possibly but it doesn't look like it. This body has a coat of tan paint (which doesn't look new enough for it to have been painted following that earlier photo), headlights, and roof ventilators. My best guess is that this car is the rumored Savannah 630 - and it's been added to the PNAERC roster accordingly.

Of course, I'd be interested in some confirmation from someone who knows for certain, not to mention I'd love some confirmation that it hasn't gone away in the intervening six or seven years. But as Birney bodies go it looks fairly complete and solid. Hopefully both of these cars are being preserved at the roundhouse. And for good measure I'd love to know whether the cadaver is still around; a photo here from early 2011 appears to show it on a shop truck inside the roundhouse with car 636 in the background:

Or is it possible this is a fourth Birney? Or the tan car thought to be 630 before a paint job? You be the judge. If you're looking for information on the streetcars at the roundhouse museum, keep in mind that there's also a Melbourne tram and a single-truck open trailer of some non-historic origin there just to make it interesting.

Warehouse Point updates

Trolling Flickr sometimes yields recent information on cars on the PNAERC list. Looking through recently-posted photos of an event at Warehouse Point in 2017 provided some updates on a couple of ConnCo cars at that museum. Car 65, formerly in storage, has been repainted and is now on display in the museum's enviable Visitor Center (above). And another ConnCo suburban car, 1326, which was damaged by vandals in 2010, is back in operation as shown below.

Branford updates

I recently got my hands on a newsletter from Branford that included updates of some of the car restoration work being performed there. Some of their restoration projects, such as PSCT 4584 and TARS 884, continue to see regular progress. But there are also a couple of new (or perhaps "new to me" would be more accurate) restoration projects that have resulted in PNAERC listing updates. First, C&LE 116, one of four surviving "Red Devil" high-speed cars, has been noted as under restoration. Though the car is not operational due to flooding, the exterior has been restored and a complete interior restoration is currently underway. There's also ConnCo 1802, a 1917 Wason steel car, which is being repainted and is evidently getting other work done as well. Finally, there was an interesting article on B&QT 8361, a Brooklyn Peter Witt recently acquired in unrestored condition from the Trolley Museum of New York. This noted that the car last ran in 1954 and also listed off the locations that it called home during its wandering years with TMNY. According to the article this was the first car acquired by TMNY, in April 1955, and between 1955 and c1967 it was stored in the B&O yard at St. George on Staten Island. It was then moved to Tansboro, NJ to the Trolley Valhalla site there, but only remained a short time until it was moved again to Morristown c1969. There it stayed until in 1976 it returned home to the Coney Island Shops of the NYCTA, where it was part of a stillborn plan to run historic streetcars on the old South Brooklyn Railway line. It left Coney Island in 1982 for the Brooklyn Army Terminal, whence it left for the permanent TMNY site in Kingston in 1988. Whew!

CLS&SB 73 interior

Bob Harris was kind enough to send along this recent interior photo of Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend 73 showing the state of the restoration at the moment. Glen Guerra and Gary Stott have been working on the car and Bob has said he will forward some additional photos as he receives them. Stay tuned!

Orange Empire updates

I had a chance to visit Orange Empire for the first time in some 13 years last week and it was quite an interesting visit. It was during the week, so nothing was running, but the volunteers there were kind enough to show me around and take me through all of the barns. The "new" barn, the six-track behemoth towards the east side of the property, was especially impressive. And as one might expect, the visit resulted in a number of changes to the PNAERC listings for equipment owned by the museum.

First there is Bamberger 127, shown below, the ex-Fonda Johnstown & Gloversville "Bullet car" which was formerly listed as under restoration. The restoration effort seems to be paused for the moment so it's been changed to "displayed inoperable."

Nearby in the same barn was San Diego Electric Railway 508, an early PCC that was sitting forlornly outdoors the last time I saw it around 2005 but has now been beautifully repainted inside and out and looks like it's nearly ready for service. Its status has been changed to "undergoing restoration" though it may already be a regular service car, I'm not completely certain. Off to the right is Pacific Electric 1624 which has been changed from "stored" to "displayed."

And then there was the line of Pacific Electric "Hollywood cars" shown below. Orange Empire owns no fewer than five of these cars: car 717 is one of their regular service cars while car 655 was recently acquired in semi-restored condition and is in line for restoration work. That leaves the three cars below, which a decade ago were stored outside (as attested by their faded appearance) on display but are now stored safely inside the new barn. However they're not really on public exhibit - at least I don't think they are, as the volunteer docent showing me around didn't seem familiar with this part of the barn - so their condition has been changed from "display" to "stored." From left to right that's car 637, car 716, and car 5123.

In that same part of the new barn was Pacific Electric 1000, the business car "Commodore." It too has been changed from "displayed" to "stored."

Below is San Diego Electric Railway 1003, ex-Utah Light & Traction 656, whose condition belies its historical significance as the only preserved city car from Salt Lake City. Similarly to the "Hollywood" cars this car used to be stored in a fairly prominent display position on the OERM property. It has also been changed from "displayed" to "stored" but it has made its way to the far back of the property on the other side of the fence. I assume it's still owned by the museum though.

And finally there's Los Angeles Transit Lines 1435, which I was surprised to see at Orange Empire at all since the last I knew it was privately owned and stored in Los Angeles. But I shouldn't have been surprised, as this blog post from the ATRRM blog points out that the car arrived in Perris in early 2016. Unfortunately it has arrived to be scrapped; Orange Empire owns two other cars from this exact series in better condition, 1423 and 1450, and car 1435 is missing a great number of parts that were stripped by Muni for eventual use on Johnstown 351. The ATRRM post also corrects an error formerly included in the car's PNAERC listing; I had thought the ill-fated trip north from Orange Empire, and subsequent transfer to Muni, was in 1993 but this suggests it was actually 1975. That has been corrected and the car's ownership has been changed from Electric Railway Historical Association to OERM.

And then there were a few cars that had changed since my last visit or just caught my eye, even if no PNAERC changes were made. Below is Los Angeles Transit Lines 2601, the very unusual prototype Peter Witt. This is a rare example of a traditional pre-PCC car. Not many streetcars were built between the onset of the Depression and the advent of the PCC so this car is a rarity. It is undergoing a thorough and long-term restoration.

Another long-term restoration is Pacific Electric 498, the museum's "Blimp" combine. This ex-Interurban Electric Railway car has just recently been painted and looks gorgeous. As with SDER 508, its restoration may be just about done but I'm not entirely sure.

There isn't really anything new about PE 1001, I'm just a fan of big wooden interurban cars. What a classic! To the far right is PE 655, mentioned earlier.

Here's something of a mystery: Orange Empire owns three "Huntington standard" bodies of Los Angeles Railways cars, cars 744, 807, and 836. Anyone know which one this photo shows? UPDATE: John Smatlak confirms that this is indeed car 744.

This isn't Orange Empire per se, but rather a next door neighbor. Visible from the back of the property are two Los Angeles Railway "sow-belly" center-entrance car bodies, cars 34 and 44, listed under Electric Railway Historical Association ownership and located on private property adjacent to the museum. (OERM has a car of this class, LARy 936, in much better shape.) Also located on the property are the body of San Diego 201 and a Toronto PCC.

You can even see them on Google aerial photos. Who knows...