Thursday, September 20, 2018

Pittsburg County Railway

My attention has been drawn to Pittsburg County Railway 32, the only surviving car from that small Oklahoma interurban line. The car's body has been put on Bettendorfs and placed on display in McAlester, Oklahoma, whence it once operated, but the more I try and delve into its history the less I'm sure that I've got it right. The car was formerly listed as having been built by Jewett in 1903, but other sources suggest it was in fact built by Niles in 1907. A little digging produced the Electric Railway Review article below, available online courtesy of Google Books.
This article, which includes a photo of Choctaw Railway & Lighting (predecessor to PCRy) 30, suggests that the sources attributing the car to Niles are correct. As such I've updated its record and copied the dimensional information from the article. But I'm still not 100% certain that this is correct: were the two cars described in the article 30 and 32 or is car 32 from a different order - possibly a reputed 1908 order for two Niles-built trailers? Anyone know for certain?

1 comment: