One That Got Away

Wesley Paulson, from the National Capital Trolley Museum, sends this fascinating account of a rather old car that nearly made it. Wesley writes...

Joel Salomon collection

Recently, Joel Salomon sent me a photo from 1960 of a car body stored at the 7th Street SW yard of DC Transit Company.   I recognized the photo of the body of Capital Traction #1, a street car mail trailer.  In his book 100 Years of Capital Traction author LeRoy O. King lists the car as constructed as a horse car by Stephenson in the 1870s and rebuilt by the Company shops as a cable car mail trailer in 1895.   A mail slot in the side of the car allows pedestrians to drop off mail en route.  In the years following the end of mail service in 1913, the Company removes the platforms and the body is used as a construction trailer by the transit company.   CTCo #1 was acquired by the fledgling Washington Electric Railway Historical Society (WERHS) in the 1950s.   The Society also acquired a Brill 21E truck from Hagerstown and Frederick for use under the car.  There is little documentation about the status of the car body during WERHS ownership and its eventual transfer to the collection of National Capital Trolley Museum in the 1960s. 

L.O. King photo, Rogers Collection. MRHL

Capital Traction Mail Car 1, Friendship Heights. Loop, c-1936, fr. Truax-Rogers Collection

Following the end of transit operations in 1962, CTCo #1 and the Brill truck were stored outdoors at an Army Depot at Curtis Bay in Baltimore.  As was typical of many trolley museum efforts nationally at the time, the mail car deteriorated in outdoor storage during the 1960s while the Museum struggled to find a permanent home.  In the early 1970s Museum member Lee Rogers salvaged several remaining pieces of the car body, including at least one platform door and a platform bonnet, that were then stored in his basement.  The Brill truck was moved to the Museum at that time.  Following the death of Rogers, the Museum moved the parts to storage at the Museum.   The Brill 21E truck was traded to Shore Line Trolley Museum in 2002.

A short video clip on YouTube shows a transfer of mail to CTCo #1 on Pennsylvania Ave in 1903, where the car is pulled by a single-truck open motor car.

Mail service continued on streetcars until the Cabin John Line was abandoned in 1960.  Streetcars carried a daily mail bag between the Main Post Office on North Capitol Street to the Cabin John Post Office in Maryland.

Many thanks to Wesley for putting together this history of a very interesting car. -Frank