Second AEM-7 preserved

The Illinois Railway Museum has announced today that it has acquired Amtrak 945, an AEM-7 mainline electric locomotive built in 1982 by Electro-Motive using components manufactured in Sweden. The locomotive was retired in 2015 and has been sitting in storage in the northeast since then but was moved to Chicago in February. It's not at Union yet; although it's off Amtrak property it is being held pending movement to IRM's site. The locomotive is not intended for operation, given that it is designed for 11,000-volt AC operation and it would be virtually impossible to adapt it for even limited operation on the museum's 600-volt DC overhead. This is the second AEM-7 preserved; number 915 was acquired by the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in 2015 straight out of service. And it's the fourth electric locomotive preserved that was built for Amtrak, preceded by older E60 type locomotives 603 and 958.

Bristol Traction corrections

I'm always trying to go through the PNAERC list to check information, especially historical (ownership) information, and correct listings. This week it was time to take a look at the surviving cars from Bristol Traction, the street railway in Bristol, Connecticut. BT was a small system, with only about two dozen cars at any one time, but there are three survivors (sort of): car 28, a 1907 single-trucker; car 34, an unusual 1917 convertible; and car 43, a 1927 double-trucker bought secondhand which is also the only surviving car from the Fitchburg & Leominster in Massachusetts. All are located at the Connecticut Trolley Museum. All three are car bodies in various stages of disrepair, though car 28 at least is on a truck which looks from photos to be roughly correct. Car 34 is probably the most distinctive of the group: not only is it a two-axle, arch-roof convertible - a rare type to be built as late as 1917 - but it is also one of only two extant cars that was built with a Brill Radiax truck with "steerable" axles.

Anyway, some research into the history of Bristol Traction (not to be confused with the Bristol Traction located in Tennessee) revealed that none of the above cars was built for BT. Rather, BT was only created in 1927 and before that was known as the Bristol & Plainville. The two older cars were built for the B&P while car 43 was purchased from the F&L, possibly around 1932 when the F&L quit or maybe earlier. (Anyone know for sure?) I also discovered that car 34, which had formerly been listed as built by Brill, was actually built by Wason - something it has in common with the other two BT cars. I'm still in need of a lot of mechanical information on these Bristol cars but at least their histories seem to have been cleared up somewhat.

Muni plans

This recent post on the Heritage Rail Alliance site provides an interesting look into the planning going on at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The post suggests that Muni is preparing a proposal to restore seven pre-PCC double-ended cars in its fleet as well as five Milan Peter Witts. Of the seven double-ended cars, one - Muni 130, built in 1914 by Jewett - is to be rebuilt in kind with its original electrical and mechanical equipment. Three other American cars - Market Street Railway 798, Johnstown 351, and New Orleans 913 - are to be restored with "standardized" electrical equipment for ease of maintenance. The first two of those are currently incomplete while the last, car 913, is complete but has only two motors and is thus underpowered on San Francisco's hills. It's not clear what standard Muni will settle on but it may be equipment common to its fleet of Milan cars or it could be new-build K-35's or something similar. The seven double-enders to be rebuilt also include three foreign cars not on the PNAERC list, cars hailing from Melbourne, Hiroshima, and Oporto.

No specific mention is made of the two Red Arrow double-enders recently acquired and moved to Brookville though they may have already been put on the list for rebuilding. The article does state that about a dozen of the PCC cars in storage, those in the worst shape, will likely be given away to whoever wants them. This most likely means the 12 ex-St. Louis Public Service cars in the 1100-series that have been in dead storage for years. Most have been in outdoor storage in San Francisco since they were retired some 35 years ago though a few were actually purchased by Muni from other owners about 15 years ago not long before the Newark cars were acquired. Even if Muni gets rid of the ex-SLPS cars it still has nine of the "Baby Ten" PCC cars, built for San Francisco in 1951, that are in storage awaiting their chance at a full rebuild in case it decides more PCC cars are needed.

First PCC returns to El Paso

An online article published yesterday states that the first of the prewar PCC cars remanufactured for the El Paso Streetcar project by Brookville is now en route back to its home in Texas. Car 1506 is the first car to return, attired in mint green and white livery. It has been heavily rebuilt so all of the mechanical components of the car have been blanked out in the PNAERC database until correct information can be found; the car's original equipment has been noted in the remarks section. Question: anyone know what the equipment being fitted to these cars is called?

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Ehrlich, who has pointed out that the cars retain their original Clark B2 trucks - albeit rebuilt for all-electric braking. It's still not certain what motors or control the rebuilt cars have.

The car's ownership has also been changed to Sun Metro, the transit provider in El Paso, with this change backdated to 2015. That's when the car really left Paso del Norte Streetcar Preservation Society's site and went to Brookville for rebuilding. As the other five PCC cars return to El Paso they will also be switched over to Sun Metro ownership. I've set the car's status to "operated occasionally" which is admittedly getting a little ahead of myself, but should be true soon enough.

Car body removed from list

Going through some of the privately-owned cars on the PNAERC list, I came across one that I decided to remove as it almost certainly doesn't qualify as "preserved," at least not any more. The car in question is Toronto Transportation Commission 2835, a center-entrance trailer which until now was listed under "Private owner - Honey Harbour." This is a holdover from an old description in Veteran & Vintage Transit, the mid-1990s book by Dave Young, but it seems the car in more recent years (see this link) was actually moved to a remote spot near Haliburton, Ontario. Regardless, the car's body - or what little is left of it - seems to be abandoned in the woods more than plinthed and on display, as the car supposedly was at one time. So, since it really doesn't qualify any longer as preserved, I've taken it off the list.

The Last Boston Birney

There's only one Birney in existence that was built for Boston and it's a long way from home. Companhia Forca e Luz do Parana 110, built by Brill in 1920 for the Boston Elevated Railway (original number unknown), was sold to Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1931 and ran there until 1952 on that city's meter-gauge system. At some point, I believe in the 1990s, the car body was discovered and restored using a separately-discovered (correct type) truck. For a time the car was on display in the Praça Tiradente in downtown Curitiba.

But while I was looking around online for something else I stumbled across this article showing that the car is no longer downtown, nor is it on display. Back in 2002 it was removed and transported to a city storage yard, which I tracked down to this location. The car still seems to be in pretty good shape; it's under a roof and while the paint is failing it appears largely intact. There's even a video here that shows the car's interior to be mainly complete (though I haven't a clue where those controllers came from). The truck needs some work though. But anyway, the car's status has been updated to "stored."

Finding up-to-date information on preserved electric cars in other countries can be tough, particularly where there's a language barrier and/or where there isn't much of a focus on the car (an example of this is the ex-Worcester Street Railway car preserved at a police station in Brazil). But if it's a car that was built for service in North America then it still qualifies for the PNAERC list and I'm still interested in trying to track it.

Savannah Birney update

As luck would have it, my father just got back from a trip to the southeast and unknowingly happened to stop by the Savannah Roundhouse Museum where he got photos of the Birneys preserved there. He confirmed that there are two cars, which are presumably cars 630 and 636, and both are stored inside the roundhouse in protected but unrestored condition.

First, the photos of Savannah 636, which has been at the museum for some 20 years or so. I recall seeing this car (and confirming its fleet number) around 15 years ago. At that time it had a floor, or at least I think it did, but apparently it doesn't now.

And then there's car 630 - at least I believe it's car 630 - which was acquired by the museum sometime around 2005-2010. The fascinating thing that these photos reveal about this car is that it appears to have been converted to gas power at some point. At least, that's what I'd guess based on that big hole at one end of the car - it looks like somewhere you'd put a power plant. This is pretty intriguing, in part because Harold Cox's Birney book contains the following comment on Savannah Birneys: "One car reported converted to a gasoline powered car for the Collins & Glenville Railroad. Conclusive proof, or disproof, is lacking." Could this car have come via the aforementioned Collins & Glenville? I'd love to know.

PCC for sale in Colorado

The Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway has put one of its nine SEPTA PCC cars, SEPTA 2131, for sale on eBay for $3,000 (the photo above is from the listing). The listing, for the moment at least, is here. This is the car that at one time was at Sky Sox Park but around 2006 it was moved back to the PPHSR and has been stored at their site, along with the other eight SEPTA cars, since. It has been noted on the PNAERC list as being for sale.

Intriguingly, the eBay listing states that another PCC car has already been sold to a nearby Ford dealership "and will be a diner." Anyone know which car that was and where exactly it has ended up?

Updates from Union

There are a few changes to cars at the Illinois Railway Museum, where I volunteer, that I noticed needed to be made. Some of these are recent while some are more longstanding ones that happened to slip under the radar. First off, Shaker Heights Rapid Transit 18 (above), which was acquired in 2013 and was the last of the Trolleyville equipment to leave Cleveland, is now undergoing restoration. The car was acquired in complete-but-tired condition and IRM is hoping to make it operational, as it was when in North Olmsted.

CTA 4410, shown above, is one of the museum's 4000-series 'L' cars but has been on inoperable display for a few years since its switch group was disassembled. Everything has now been put back together so that the car can enter the regular operating fleet, so it's been changed to "operated often."

Then there's Detroit 3865, one of five surviving streetcars from the Motor City, which has been taken off of public display and put into storage in one of IRM's off-limits barns. Its condition has been changed in the PNAERC list to "stored inoperable" as has North Shore 763, which was actually taken off of public display a year or two ago and put into one of the off-limits storage barns.

Wisconsin Electric Power L4 has suffered a motor armature bearing failure so, until that is repaired, it is no longer running. Its condition has been changed to "displayed inoperable."

And finally, three of the museum's ex-Illinois Central/ex-Metra "Highliner" commuter cars, numbers 1534, 1630, and 1637, have been changed from "operated occasionally" to "stored operable." These three cars (the fourth owned by the museum has not run at IRM, at least not yet) are in running condition and have been briefly run at Union, as shown below, but for the last year and a half they've been stored out from under wire.

Lost Railway Museum grows

For a brief period in recent years the tiny hamlet of Grass Lake, Michigan had the unusual distinction of containing two separate traction preservation groups. First came the local historical society, which in 2013 retrieved the body of Michigan Electric 29, a 1913 steel interurban car, from a nearby house and put it into storage. Then a couple of years later came the Lost Railway Museum, a dueling group, which acquired the recently-discovered body of Chicago Surface Lines 1137 from a family in Wisconsin and painted it up as a Michigan United Traction car.

That situation is now no more. Thanks to Wesley Paulson, who took time to look into recent developments in Grass Lake, this article from last September came to light describing how the Grass Lake Historical Society has transferred ownership of car 29 (and the remnants of the long-suffering North Shore 154) to the Lost Railway Museum. The native car has even been painted in Michigan Electric colors and moved into the LRM display building, where car 1137 is already housed, as shown above. Ownership of both cars has been updated in the PNAERC database.

This seems like good news. Car 29 is obviously in the midst of a cosmetic restoration that seems to be progressing nicely. It's apparently been placed on South Shore interurban trucks and will be displayed alongside the ex-CSL streetcar and alongside a San Diego horsecar acquired late last year. As for car 154, its current status isn't entirely clear; as of early 2017 the stripped shell of the car was still in Grass Lake awaiting possible interest from an outside group but it may have been cut up since. Oddly, both 154 and 29 have sister cars preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum; North Shore 160 is in operational condition while Michigan Electric 28 is undergoing a major rebuilding effort. Another classmate of car 154, North Shore 162, is extant in Connecticut but is in poor condition and has been offered for sale.