Orange Empire updates

Many thanks to Chris Baldwin of the Orange Empire Railway Museum, who has sent a series of updates on their equipment. These are all changes from the previous status of the listed cars.

Recently-acquired LAMR 144, recently-overhauled LARy 525, and LARy PCC 3001 are all now listed as "operated occasionally." Muni 171 and LAMTA 3165, which in the past saw occasional use, are now "displayed operable." PE Birney 331, PE office car 1299, and LATL standard cars 1423, 1450, and 1559 are now officially out of service and are listed as "displayed inoperable" (formerly they'd been listed as "operated occasionally" or "displayed operable"). Similarly, PE "Blimp" 314 is now out of service but is in storage. LATL PCC 3100 and LARy 1201 are now seeing more use and the status of both cars has been changed to "operated often."

There are a few more substantive changes than switches to whether a car is judged operational or how often it operates. PE steeplecab 1624 is now undergoing restoration, starting with an interior paint job and some wiring and electrical systems repair. The locomotive has been in rough shape for years but it's complete and an excellent candidate for full restoration. LARy 665 is another car that is now under restoration; this longtime regular service car has gone into the shop for a general overhaul.

Longtime regular service car PE 717, a "Hollywood" car that for years was painted fancifully in a "Valley Seven" livery but was more recently returned to as-built colors, has been put into storage following an incident that caused some damage. The car is operational but requires repairs before going back into public operation. Marty Bernard photo.

And LA car 1435, shown above in a photo from about a year ago, has been sold to an individual and moved off-property for preservation. This car was acquired as a body and is a duplicate (triplicate?) of two other complete cars in the OERM collection so it was not intended to be kept at the museum. I'm working on tracking down where it went. UPDATE: thanks to John Smatlak and Gary Starre from OERM, who relate that car 1435 has been transferred to the Riverside County Fairgrounds in Indio, where the plan is to cosmetically restore it and place it on display. EDIT: Update here