How did I miss this one?

It's not too unusual for me to happen upon a random electric car body preserved by some local history group that has been in preservation for years, but unbeknownst to me (there are plenty of examples of this). But the latest example of this is a bit more prominent than most, or at least you'd think so.

Pacific Electric 4601 is one of that line's giant "Blimp" interurban cars and was built by ACF in 1911 for the Southern Pacific's electric lines in the Bay Area, later known as Interurban Electric Railway. Following the 1941 demise of IER, this car was among a batch of IER cars sent down to the LA area in 1942 for wartime service with the US Maritime Commission. In 1944 it was sold to the PE and renumbered 4601. Unfortunately it didn't keep its new identity for long: in October 1946 it was involved in a very bad head-on collision in Torrance that resulted in the death of the motorman. With one end hopelessly crushed in, the car was stripped and sold for scrap.

Little did I know until now, but it was bought by a Torrance resident who kept it around as described in this online article. In 1987 the car's body was donated to the city and placed in Wilson Park next to the site of the Southern California Live Steamers. It's still there today, sitting on Bettendorf trucks, with its wrecked end still lopped off, but painted in a coat of red paint and looking reasonably well maintained. You'd think I would have come across this earlier, but it took someone named James Whitney posting the above photo on Facebook to bring the car to my attention. It certainly qualifies for the list; there are other cars missing an end on the PNAERC roster, and with its trucks and paint job it's obviously meant to be an historic display. As prominent as its placement is, I just never came across references to it until now. Better late than never!

And while I was at it, I noticed that I had screwed up some of the ownership history on the various preserved ex-IER cars. That's now been fixed - the cars are listed as having been owned by the SP until 1934, when the East Bay electric lines were reorganized as IER, and then the cars that went south to the USMC in 1942 have had that owner added. With the corrections, PE 498 has now gone through a total of ten different owners or numbers, including three different USMC numbers and two PE numbers. I'm not sure if it's the record holder for ownership changes but it's certainly up there.

Los Angeles car turns up in Massachusetts

While looking for something else, I stumbled across this interesting link about Los Angeles Railway 57. You will recall that three years ago now, as described here, car 57 was put up for sale by the Poway-Midland in Poway, California. The history of this car is uncertain but as near as I can figure it was built in 1894 as LARy 54 and was later used as "material car" 9306. It's been questionably restored but still retains a lot of original material, including an ultra-rare McGuire single truck of some sort.

Anyway, last September it crossed the continent and wound up at the Samuel Slater Experience, a brand new "living history" museum in Webster, Massachusetts south of Worcester. There's a video of the car being put in its display spot here (Facebook link, no log-in required). From the SSE website, it looks like this car is being used to represent local streetcars and apparently visitors can go for a "ride" complete with the car rocking back and forth a bit while a movie plays outside the windows. It sounds kind of interesting. Regardless, SSE has now been added to the PNAERC list as a new owner (supplanting Poway-Midland, which no longer owns any electric cars) and car 57's record has been updated.

Kennecott Copper locomotive runs

The image above is a frame grab from a video posted yesterday on Facebook here (no log-in required) by the Western Railway Museum. The video shows the first operation in many years of Kennecott Copper 700, a huge articulated-truck steeplecab built in 1927 by GE. The WRM post says that the locomotive still needs a bit of work but it sounds like their plan is to put it into revenue service. KCC 700's status on the list has thus been updated from "displayed inoperable" to "operated occasionally."

This is a pretty unusual piece of equipment to see operating. It's the only one of the nine preserved Kennecott Copper electric locomotives that's operational; most of the others aren't even close and/or aren't located at museums with live overhead. It's the biggest operational steeplecab in an American museum by far. And it's one of only two articulated-truck steeplecabs currently operational (the other is much older and smaller). Kudos to the WRM crew on getting this unusual piece going.

Denver work car added to list

Thanks to Olin Anderson, who alerted me to this post on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum. It describes (with pictures, including the one above) a Denver Tramways work car that heretofore was unknown to me. So that's the good news: Denver Tramways 723, an arch-roof double-end utility car, has now been added to the PNAERC list.

But then there's the bad news. First of all, the car - privately owned and located in Strasburg, Colorado - was up for auction today, June 5th. I have no idea whether it sold or, if it did, to whom. That's an issue because if it was bought by an individual then it may be difficult to track down where it ends up, and if it didn't sell at all then it may simply get demolished and that can be hard to confirm too. Second on the bad news front is that I have virtually no information on this car. UPDATE: Many thanks to John Swindler for sending an information sheet on this car from the auction website. That has allowed me to add quite a bit of technical information on it. John also reports that the car body sold at auction for $250, but I'm still not sure to whom. Anyone know?