Thanks to Greg Kepka, who alerted me to the fact that the Danbury Railway Museum added a pair of 1970s-era class M2 "Cosmopolitan" MU cars to their collection. These cars were built for service between New York and New Haven and were jointly operated by the New York MTA and the Connecticut Department of Transportation. As such they were dual-voltage, designed to work on both the high-voltage AC of the New Haven and the 600 volt DC approaches into Grand Central Terminal. They were dubbed "Cosmopolitans" to set them apart from the similar type M1 "Metropolitan" cars built slightly earlier for the Long Island Rail Road. Cars 8706 and 8707 were in the last train of operating M2 cars on December 28, 2018 and in April of this year they were moved to DRM and put on display there. I haven't been able to find any decent photos of these cars in their new home but I'm sure photos will show up at some point.
I'm still missing some information on these two (notably, exactly when they were built - the M2 series was constructed over a period of several years) but their new PNAERC listings are relatively complete. For its part, Danbury is quickly gaining a significant collection of mainline electric equipment. Besides their new 1970s cars they also have all three surviving New Haven "washboard" MU cars and a pair of ex-New York Central MU cars from the 1960s. To top it off they've got the electric wrecker from Grand Central Terminal. Their collection already arguably rivals that of IRM or MOT; now all they need is an electric locomotive or two.
Frank: To clarify your comment above, these cars were not jointly operated by New York and Connecticut. MetroNorth (an agency of New York State) was the sole operator, but about half cars were owned by Connecticut. They were painted and lettered as such. It would be nice to know who owned this pair.
ReplyDeletePete, you're exactly right. What I'm trying to figure out now is who owned the 8700s like the ones preserved in Danbury. I've come across two different rosters online, one stating that 8700-8749 were owned by MTA and 8800-8849 by CDOT and one averring that the 8700s were owned by CDOT and the 8800s by the MTA. I haven't a clue which is correct. I may be better off just listing them under Metro North rather than under their owner but Metro North wasn't created until 1983. Was the MTA operating these cars before 1983?
ReplyDeleteThere is a photo pf one of the cars taken at the museum and it sports the Connecticut shield. Conrail operated this service before Metro North--Pete
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