Indianapolis Railways car scrapped

UPDATE: As of late June 2018 it seems this car is still in existence! It was located so far back in the trees that on a previous visit it appeared to be gone. We regret the error.

Original post:
I received confirmation this weekend that earlier in the month the last existing streetcar from Indianapolis Railways, IR 153, was scrapped by the Indiana Transportation Museum at their site in Noblesville.

This is probably the most historic car to be cut up so far at ITM. It was built by Brill in 1932 and ran until the end of Indianapolis streetcar service in 1953. It was arguably the most modern "traditional" streetcar in the United States and one of very few preserved cars built during the Depression for street railways. These cars were pretty similar to the Portland 800s, of which one survives in operating condition, but utilized the more modern single-end Peter Witt arrangement later used on PCC cars.

The body of car 153 was acquired by ITM (then IMOTAC, the Indiana Museum of Transportation and Communication) in 1972; it is pictured above at the Noblesville site in 1979. As can be seen, it was far from unsalvageable at the time; though missing windows and with some minor damage, it seems to have had fairly little rust. Seashore has certainly restored far worse to operation.

Unfortunately car 153 became one of the most forgotten streetcars in a museum. It was never moved nor put on trucks, and a forest of sorts steadily grew up around it. The above photo is from 2007 and shows that the car has become largely overgrown. I dimly recall from a visit to ITM a few years before this that the car was difficult to see, much less access, during the summer when the site was a bit more overgrown.

The car's longtime site is now a scorched patch of earth. So car 153 has been removed from the PNAERC site; the only known piece of Indianapolis Railways electric equipment to survive is now a trolley bus at the Illinois Railway Museum which itself only escaped an aggressive scrap drive a few years ago. ITM's electric collection is down to 18 pieces (of which four are Lackawanna MU trailers) and the scrappers are supposed to be on site this coming week; supposedly the next cars in line are the three remaining CTA 4000s. Stay tuned.