Capital Traction 27 update

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson of the National Capital Trolley Museum, who has sent along this update of the restoration work being done on Capital Traction 27 (later DC Transit 766):

Restoration nears completion on Capital Traction 27 (Kuhlman 1918). Long familiar as "766", its post-1933 merger roster number, Capital Traction 27 now wears the livery from its early 1930s rebuild.  The Museum decided to restore the car to the 1930s time point to interpret a standard two-man car from that era.  A restoration to an as-built status was determined to be too extensive since the car retains most of the modifications from the rebuilding, including seating and mechanical changes.  It was necessary to remove modifications made by Capital Transit when the car was converted to one-man operation in 1944, including a treadle door and opening the platform doors on the "blind side" of the car.

Interior restoration included stripping paint and varnishing exposed wood surfaces, replacing the ceiling lining, and reupholstering the seats (not shown).  All window frames were rebuilt or replaced.  A traditional fare register will be installed but the original linkage through the car was destroyed in the 2003 fire, having been removed when the car arrived at the Museum in 1970. 

The current project does not include a mechanical restoration.  The car was rewired in this phase of the project, but new brake piping must be installed before the car can operate on its own.  Current plans are to display the car for its 100th birthday in Streetcar Hall.  And open the interior for inspection on special event days.

The restoration was supported by the 20th Century Electric Railway Foundation, the Chevy Chase Land Company, Monarch Paint Company, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Maryland Historic Trust, Heritage Montgomery, and many generous individual donors.

Keith Bray, Bruce Thain and Ed Blossom provided professional services in support of the project over many years.

Noblesville update

A couple of people I know stopped by the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville this past weekend and sent in some updated information.

The last two of the museum's 4000s have been scrapped. Car 4257, shown above in a recent photo, was built by Cincinnati in 1922 and sold by the CTA in 1975. It was originally bought by the Oakland County Parks & Recreation Commission and I think was one of the 4000s stored in Michigan City on the South Shore for a few years. Sometime around 1980 it was acquired by ITM and has been sitting in dead storage in Noblesville since.

And then there's the 4388, shown above on the scrap track a couple of weeks ago with signs of having been switched by an end loader or something similar. This is another typical 4000, built by Cincinnati in 1924 and sold by the CTA to ITM (then IMOTAC) in 1979. The loss of these two cars is no great tragedy, as there are still many 4000s in various stages of repair in other museums, but it does bring to a close a large chapter in ITM's history. The museum at one time owned no fewer than 11 of these cars, by my count, with some acquired for restoration and others acquired as parts sources for the planned restoration of interurban car bodies.

A loss of considerably more significance is the recent scrapping of Evansville & Ohio Valley 154, shown above in a photo taken a few weeks ago. This was a standard interurban-style General Electric steeplecab built pretty early, in 1912, for an obscure line in Portsmouth, Ohio called the Portsmouth Street Railroad & Light Company. Later it went to a slightly better-known interurban line in southwestern Indiana, the Evansville & Ohio Valley, before rounding out its career on a short industrial line owned by Cook Transportation. It was an early acquisition by IMOTAC, purchased by the museum in 1965 around when it moved into Forest Park in Noblesville, but has never run at the museum. Although historic its condition had worsened steadily over the years and no museum stepped up to purchase it.

That said, there was a surprising turn when it was revealed that the Indianapolis Peter Witt, car 153, actually has not (yet) been scrapped as previously reported! The scorched patch of earth thought to be its former location was actually further out in the museum yard, while the Peter Witt still resides back in the forest swallowed by trees. So for the moment, at least, it has been put back on the list.

The traction collection at ITM continues to shrink. Other than Lackawanna MU trailers, of which the museum still has four, the only electric cars stored outside are the aforementioned Peter Witt, CRANDIC 55, South Shore 205, Union Traction 437, the Twin Branch engine, and a forlorn Lafayette Birney body. Four other electrics, a couple of them privately owned, are stored inside. The museum's electric collection now stands at 14 pieces.

Another San Diego U2 LRV added to the list

Perusing YouTube videos of trolley museums, as I occasionally do, I stumbled across a video showing a two-car (well, two-unit/four-car depending on how you look at it) train of San Diego LRVs in operation at Orange Empire just three months ago. Sure enough, I only had one of these cars on my list. Looks like it's time for another addition!

The new addition is San Diego 1003, one of the 1981-vintage U2 light rail cars that opened service on the San Diego light rail system and really helped to usher in the modern light rail renaissance. It joins identical car 1008, which was acquired by Orange Empire in 2016. I'm not exactly sure when OERM acquired car 1003; I visited in January 2018 and didn't see it, but I confess that I saw one of these light rail cars from afar and didn't walk over to see it (I'm personally a fan of older equipment - though that doesn't say much in this case) so I very likely just missed seeing it. Anyone know when it showed up? EDIT: Thanks to Bill Wulfert for pointing out that the car arrived in March 2018!

Anyhow, this makes the sixth San Diego U2 to be preserved, at least as far as I know. Besides the two cars at Orange Empire there are two at Rio Vista, one at Rockhill Trolley Museum in Pennsylvania, and the very first car, 1001, is apparently being preserved by the San Diego transit system itself. Although they're modern LRVs by overall design concept these cars are mostly free of computers and use camshaft control, so they'll likely be easier to keep running in the long term than newer cars. Or so the aforementioned museums hope!

And on a final note, I'm always a fan of weird coincidences. The addition of this car makes it the third car at Orange Empire numbered 1003. The other two, an LARy Birney and a San Diego double-truck streetcar, are in slightly worse condition.

CTA work motor scrapped in Noblesville

More scrapping is underway this week in Noblesville at the Indiana Transportation Museum. A video was posted here of the last of the CTA 4000-series work motors, S369, being dismantled yesterday, on June 12th, using a claw boom. The car is pictured above in a photo taken a few days ago. This car was built in 1924 for the Chicago elevated as car 4390 and in 1972 was rebuilt as work motor S369. It went to ITM (then IMOTAC, the Indiana Museum of Transportation and Communication) in 1979 and has been stored there ever since.

As of last week, the "scrap track" on which S369 was sitting also contained the museum's two remaining 4000s, 4388 (visible to the left of S369 in the above photo) and 4257 (out of view to the right), as well as Evansville & Ohio Valley 154, a complete and relatively historic - albeit badly deteriorated - interurban steeplecab. The video shows that 4388 hadn't been scrapped yet as of yesterday - though it may go away today - but it doesn't make it clear whether 4257 and the steeplecab are gone yet or not.

ITM is now down to 16 electric cars on the list (from 24 last year) with three of the 16 on the "scrap track" and another four of them Lackawanna MU cars.

Reading MU car moves

I happened upon the photo above (from Railroad Picture Archives here) of Reading MU trailer 774, which until recently was in Jim Thorpe, PA. This was one of four identical MU trailers acquired in 1976 by Rail Tours for use as locomotive-hauled coaches and was apparently acquired by Rail Tours' successor in Jim Thorpe, Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway, in 2005. Sometime within the past couple of years this car has shown up in Hamburg at the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society's museum. Hence, its ownership has been changed.

All four of those Rail Tours MU trailers are still around, or at least they were last I knew. One is in Stewartstown PA on the Stewartstown Railroad and the other two appear to be in dead storage on the California Western at Fort Bragg, California way out on the west coast.

Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend 73 update

Many thanks to Bob Harris of RAIL Foundation who has forwarded along some update photos showing recent progress on Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend 73. This historic wooden interurban is the only surviving car from the CLS&SB, the predecessor to the Chicago South Shore & South Bend, and was rescued in "chicken coop" condition in the early 1990s. Bob and master woodworker Glenn Guerra have been rebuilding the car and, after a hiatus, work has recently resumed. It will truly be a spectacular car when it's complete.

New car added to list

I was able to add another car to my list this past week - it's not a car that entered preservation recently, but rather one whose existence has only recently been confirmed. CTA 4325 is a standard Chicago "4000" elevated car that was sold by the CTA in 1978 and stored for a time in Minneapolis, apparently under the auspices of the Minnesota Transportation Museum. At some point it was acquired by the owner of the Escanaba & Lake Superior and moved to that railroad's location in Michigan, where it is kept in secure storage. It is one of only a few extant 4000s that were fitted with gasket-style upper sash windows, as shown above in a 1970s photo, and presumably still has this style of window.

Montreal Tramways cars updated

Thanks to Gord McOuat of the Halton County Radial Railway for providing technical information on two cars on the PNAERC list that are preserved at the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson-Ste. Constant, Montreal Tramways 1953 and 1959. These are both lightweight cars built in 1928 and comprise two of three surviving examples of their type (Bill Wall points out that 1972 is preserved at Branford). Until now I was lacking any mechanical information at all - trucks, motors, control, brakes, etc. Thanks Gord!

I'm still in need of this information for some of the other cars at Delson. If you're able to provide any information, it's always apprecaited!

Baldwin-Westinghouse Class S scrapped

It has been confirmed that one of two Baldwin-Westinghouse Class S steeplecabs, and the last interurban-style steeplecab built by the company, has been scrapped. The locomotive was Delaware River Port Authority (PATCO) 404, shown above in a 2015 photo from this link. It was built by B-W in 1937 as Niagara Junction 9, running in Niagara Falls until 1974 when it was sold to PATCO for use in hauling work trains. In 2001 it was repainted in traditional Delaware River Joint Commission blue and silver and hauled a pair of bridge cars, 1008 and 1015, in a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the construction of the Ben Franklin Bridge. It appears to have seen little use since.

The other Class S built, Cornwall 17 (originally Salt Lake & Utah 106, then Grand River Railway 230), which was built in 1930, is still in existence and plinthed in Cornwall. It's not clear whether the two bridge cars that were until recently on PATCO property have been scrapped or whether they're still stored at Lindenwold Yard.

Missing Pittsburgh PCC

A friend who paid a recent visit to the Ohio Railway Museum mentioned that Pittsburgh PCC 1772, pictured above in 2015 from this link, is no longer there. It appears that back in 2015 it left the museum, supposedly for use as an ice cream stand or similar. I'm a bit more than a day late on this one! Anyone know where it has ended up?
UPDATE: This mystery has been solved!