Here are a couple of updates of news items that have popped up in recent days. First, as reported on our sister blog
Hicks Car Works,
Shaker Heights Rapid Transit 18 (shown above) is now operational at the Illinois Railway Museum. Restoration work on the car is ongoing and repainting into 1940s "bankers colors" with correct lettering is planned. This was the last Trolleyville car to leave Cleveland. After the Trolleyville collection was dispersed in 2010, car 18 was stored on the Cleveland RTA for another three years in the hopes that it would end up displayed in the city. That didn't happen, though, and it was acquired by IRM in 2013. It's now one of three operating Shaker Heights center-door cars, joining
car 12 at NORM and
car 1227 at Seashore.
And in other news, El Paso PCC
car 1510 is evidently for sale according to
this post on Facebook (no log-in required). The car, built in 1937 as San Diego Electric Railway 517, was sold into private ownership in 1986 and has served as a couple of different retail shops in its longtime home at the corner of
3rd & Mesa in El Paso. While its interior has obviously been stripped out, it's likely that the car's structure is relatively sound, though it's hard to say for sure whether it's had any extra holes cut into it. From appearances it also retains its trucks and, most likely, at least some of its electrical equipment.
The Western Railway Museum out at Rio Vista Jct in California has started a fundraising campaign to raise money for this PCC Cars acquisition.
ReplyDeleteLee, thanks for the mention of Rio Vista's new fundraising effort. For better or worse, I think that WRM is actually fundraising to acquire a different car from the same series, SDER 502 (later El Paso 1500). I have no idea whether they have looked at car 1510.
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