312 pale ale, anyone?

Thanks to Lucas McKay, who is maintaining a list of traction car bodies, for pointing out that CTA 2347 - until now included on the PNAERC list - has been heavily modified for use as a Goose Island "beer trailer." The above photo was taken at the recent Chicago Auto Show by Chuck Westerman and posted on Facebook; it shows the hapless CTA car open for business, with its interior seats arranged as beer garden seating no less.

This car was one of only a handful of 1969-vintage Budd 2200-series CTA cars still in existence. The only set that's formally preserved, 2243-2244, is at the Illinois Railway Museum and is operated on a semi-regular basis. There's also 2348, which was gutted and moved to the roof of the Google building in Chicago, and a pair that's still on CTA property in use as a changing room and storage locker. Those aren't on the list because they're not really "preserved" - at least not yet, in the case of the cars still at CTA. The only other one was 2347, which until last year was stored at an RV company in Fairfield, Ohio of all things. It's even visible on Google Street View as recently as June 2018. But as part of its Goose Island rebuilding it had a large portion of one end cut away so it can be hauled behind a semi tractor and the entire car body was narrowed by a foot or so, presumably so that it doesn't need an over-width permit. Yikes! With all this modification it's not close enough to original configuration that it qualifies for PNAERC, so it's off the list. Bottoms up!

The Wilmington car

A business trip found me in Wilmington, Delaware this past weekend and that got me curious about the last surviving car from that city's street railway system: Delaware Electric Power 120, preserved today in operating condition at the Electric City Trolley Museum. (Photo above by Frank Dutton)

Until now this car has been listed in PNAERC as having been built by Laclede in 1904 and having run for DEP from then until about 1940, when it was sold to Philadelphia and used as a rail grinder until retirement and preservation in 1971. Some quick digging revealed that I had my early history wrong: DEP wasn't created until 1927. Before then it was Wilmington & Philadelphia Traction, and before 1910 that system was Wilmington City Railway. So I've updated the car's ownership history and I think I've got that correct. (I should mention that Wilmington had some of the most horrendously ugly streetcars ever built - feast your eyes on this - but fortunately 120 is not one of them and is a very attractive little car!)

The biggest question is exactly who built the car and when. ECTM's website says that it was built either by Laclede or Jackson & Sharp around 1904, so of course my next step was to refer to Harold Cox's roster site. This indeed has rosters of both builders but it's not apparent whether or not either roster is complete. There aren't any orders listed under Laclede built for lines in Delaware while there are several orders listed under J&S for Wilmington City Railway that have sketchy information and no fleet numbers listed. (I also can't figure out WCR numbering at all, which judging from Cox's order list seems to have bounced back and forth between two-digit, 100-series, 200-series, and 300-series numbering.)

Anyone have any thoughts? I'm tempted to change the car's builder to J&S but either way I'm just speculating. I have, at least, made a note that the car's builder and date of construction is uncertain.

The Electromobile goes to the Stourbridge Line

This photo is from a recent post on RyPN which relates that Scranton Transit 505, the last surviving Osgood-Bradley Electromobile, has been moved from its home at the Electric City Trolley Museum to the Stourbridge Line 30 miles away in Honesdale, PA. The latter operation will take point on some of the significant body repair and rebuilding work which (obviously) remains to be done. The scale of this project is impressive, given the totally disassembled kit that ECTM has started with, and it will be fascinating to see car 505 slowly regain its original appearance. On the PNAERC list the car's location has been changed to the Stourbridge Line, which is already included as an organization because they use a handful of Lackawanna MU cars in their excursion train. This is my standard practice to make it easier to track cars by physical location; other equipment like this snow sweeper in Baltimore are also stored at museums that do not own them. In my judgment it makes more sense to list them by physical location, at least in cases where the physical location already exists in PNAERC as an owner.

Baltimore Streetcar Museum updates

From our friend David Wilson at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum come some updates of projects currently underway there. First up is United Railways & Electric 1164, pictured above, a classic 1902 Brill-built open car complete with Maximum Traction trucks. This car is in the shop for roof work, including not only new canvas but some new and refurbished wood parts and copper sheathing where appropriate. Amazingly, David reports that there aren't any "extra" tack holes under the canvas, suggesting that what's being removed may be the original 1902 canvas. This car was removed from regular service very early, in 1922, at which point it was put into (presumably indoor) storage. As such it likely saw only 20 summers of use. That a car like this still exists at all is a virtual miracle.

Joining car 1164 in the shop is Baltimore Consolidated 1050, a single-truck closed car built in 1898 by Brownell. This car was retired for platform rebuilding a few years ago and this has been an on-again, off-again project that has now been resumed in earnest. The car is having both platforms rehabbed along with a general exterior restoration. Photo by David Wilson.

And last is Newark PCC 26, shown here in a 2014 photo. This car has been the subject of some recent fundraising and the payoff is now in progress, as the car has been transported to a body and paint shop in Columbia, PA. The plan is for it to remain there for a few months while its exterior is restored and then for it to return to BSM. This method of restoration is fairly unusual in traction preservation; usually the painters come to the car rather than the other way around. The results promise to be impressive.