Bakersfield update

By pure chance I stumbled across this article, posted last month on Bakersfield.com. It answers a question I've had for quite a while: what is the condition and status of Bakersfield & Kern 10?

I happened across a mention of B&K 10 a number of years back. It's a double-truck California car built by the American Car Company in early 1912 (ordered at the end of 1911), and was said to be at the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield, California, but other than that I knew basically nothing about it. I managed to find a reference or two that confirmed the car's presence at the museum but had never seen a photo of it - until now.

It's a body, which I had pretty much assumed (the B&K abandoned streetcar service in Bakersfield around 1941 from what I can tell), but as car bodies go it looks halfway decent. It's a handsome deck-roof car that bears a strong resemblance to San Jose Railway 124, another 1912 American-built California car which is preserved up in San Jose (though SJR 124 has a longer closed section).

Furthermore, B&K 10 is currently undergoing a cosmetic restoration. It has been placed in a newly-renovated event space at the Kern County Museum and a small crew seems to be working on rehabbing it. So I've updated its condition and have also added a few tidbits of information I found, like overall length and seating capacity. I still don't know what control, motors, brakes, or pump it would have had in service, so if you have any books on the B&K then let me know what you find.

And while I'm at it, I may as well mention that this is not the only B&K car preserved. Car 4, a single-truck California car dating to 1900, is preserved at SCRM in Perris and was fully restored from car body status itself. It was retired from passenger service (supposedly due to a run-in with an AT&SF steam engine) and made into a work car in 1912, right about the time car 10 was being delivered from the American plant in St. Louis.

The "Philly Six" quandary

Photos were posted recently on Facebook by someone named James Pero. Taken this past weekend, they show the condition of the six Philadelphia PCC cars stored behind an old factory building on Erie Avenue on the north side of the city. Their condition is not good, and the extent to which "not good" is an understatement puts me in a bit of a quandary. Most of the cars have had at least one end cut off of them within the last couple of years - three cars are missing about 10' from the back end of the car, another car is missing about 10' from its front end, and one car had its roof cut open as if with a giant can opener. So the question is, do these cars still belong on the PNAERC list?

Car 2760 is at the west end of the string and is missing its rear end. James Pero photo.

I'm going to say "no, they don't." I've got a few cars on the list that are missing an end, or even two. But for the most part those are relatively standard streetcars missing a platform, so the car's body is substantially intact. Furthermore, by and large, their owners acquired them knowing about their missing ends and intend to preserve them anyway. Most plan on making the cars whole again someday. 

Car 2141 is missing its front end, roughly from the bolster forward. James Pero photo.

The six PCC cars in Philadelphia are not like this. They've been privately owned since they were sold by SEPTA in 1996. For a few years they were stored on the south side of the city in a lot at the corner of Swanson and Wolf. In 2004 all six cars were carted up to Erie Avenue, where they were set behind a large building, just along the north side of the Northeast Corridor. They've sat there for 16 years in steadily deteriorating condition. As recently as 2017 they were listed for sale online.

Car 2171 has had its rear end removed and you can see daylight through the body. James Pero photo.

Recently the six cars have started to lose large pieces. The care and consistency with which sections are being removed from these cars suggests that components are being removed for a purpose, likely for reuse somewhere else. There are a couple of transit agencies (including SEPTA itself) with Philadelphia PCC's in daily use so perhaps these cars are being cannibalized for wreck repair or similar purposes. I don't know. But more to the point, there's virtually no chance that any of the PCC cars in Philadephia that have had big pieces removed will ultimately survive. They're not very historically significant; it would be a lot of work to make the cars whole again; and the cars are not being kept around for the purpose of ultimate preservation anyway.

Car 2760 still has both of its ends but its roof has been torn open for reasons unknown. James Pero photo.

As such, I'm removing five of the six cars from the PNAERC roster. The sixth, car 2717, still appears to be largely complete (albeit in wretched shape) so it's being kept on the list for now. It is unlikely that it will survive for too long, but I suppose you never know. The five remaining cars have been removed from the list: 2141, which had its front end removed; 2171, 2761, and 2796, all with their back ends removed; and 2760, which had its roof torn up. All were built by St. Louis Car Company in 1947-1948. More than 70 similar or identical examples exist elsewhere, either in regular transit use or in museums. While these five cars are still in existence, of a sort, my opinion is that they no longer qualify as "preserved" nor do they stand a reasonable chance of long-term survival.

Car 2760, at the east end of the string, had its back end removed. James Pero photo.

Tampa double-truck Birney found

Many thanks to Joel Salomon, who was able to track down one of my missing cars. He was able to get hold of Brian Allen from Florida, who confirmed that Tampa Electric 402, which was last seen in 2016 on a trailer but in an unknown location, is at a company called Rustic Steel on the north side of Tampa. In fact it's easily visible from Business Route 41 (here's the requisite Street View link from which I got the above image). Rustic Steel appears to be some kind of boutique metal fabrication and architectural salvage company and as best I can figure, car 402 is serving mainly as a lawn ornament at the moment. The car has been switched from Tampa Historic Streetcar ownership to Rustic Steel ownership.

So it's not the best outcome for the car and its future is still somewhat questionable, especially given its rather banged-up condition. Back about 20 years ago, when there was a streetcar preservation group in Tampa that was trying to get the city to build a heritage trolley line, car 402 was going to be the second restored Tampa Electric car after Birney 163. The heritage line was built using Gomaco double-truckers and the Birney is still there, I think in occasional use, but the original historic streetcar group seems to have collapsed. Their work car was most likely demolished (see this recent post) and car 402 ended up as, well, a lawn ornament. Besides being one of only two surviving Tampa streetcars, car 402 is also thought to be the last remaining "true" double-truck Birney built by American. However double-truck Birneys built by other companies survive, as do a handful of American-built double-truckers of a design that postdates the Birney.