Indianapolis Peter Witt moved to new home

The latest electric car to leave the old Indiana Transportation Museum site in Forest Park, Noblesville is Indianapolis Railways 153. The news, and the photo above, come from a Facebook post (no log-in required) by the Hoosier Heartland Trolley Company. HHTC has moved car 153 to its site where it is being kept under cover along with the organization's three interurban cars.

Car 153 is very historic. It's the last electric streetcar from Indianapolis and is arguably the most modern streetcar preserved from before the streamliner/PCC era (Portland 813 is of the same vintage but has older-style K-control, rather than 153's PCM control, and lacks the more modern Peter Witt door arrangement). As such it's a significant piece, but unfortunately it has suffered grievously during its years of neglect in Forest Park. It was very close to being scrapped but HHTC stepped in and saved the car, installing steel beams to reinforce the underframe to allow the car to be moved. And of course even when ITM acquired the car in the 1970s it was a body, lacking trucks, control, and an interior.