Trenton Streetcar to be Preserved

Against all odds, it would appear that the decrepit husk of the last surviving Trenton streetcar is headed for preservation and perhaps even restoration. Trenton Street Railway 288 - as of today added to the PNAERC roster - was discovered this fall while a house in Hamilton, New Jersey was being demolished. Buried within the structure of the house, and hidden by wall paneling for decades, was the body of a 1914 Brill-built deck-roof streetcar. Both platforms are gone, as is the entire interior including walls and ceiling, but examination of exterior paneling revealed the car's number.

While there's not much left to this car, it is historic as the last streetcar from New Jersey's capital city and one of very, very few non-Newark/PSCT streetcars from the Garden State to survive. A News 12 story now says that car 288 is going to be shipped to Iowa, presumably to Gomaco, for a restoration to be funded by an organization called Liberty Historic Railway. I confess I'd never heard of LHR but they've funded a number of restoration projects in their home state including a few ship and bus restorations. They've got their work cut out for them with Trenton 288 but if they can make this sow's ear into a silk purse it will be a truly remarkable transformation.