South Brooklyn steeplecab to Branford

Many thanks to Bill Wall for forwarding the above photo and the news that Branford has acquired the locomotive pictured, New York City Transit Authority 7. NYCTA 7 is a fairly standard GE steeplecab, though fitted with a flat roof for low clearance areas. It was built in 1925 for the South Brooklyn Railway and later in life performed maintenance and switching duties for the general subway system. I believe this was the last locomotive on the New York subway system with trolley poles. Anyway, it's complete and in pretty good shape, so it will make a great addition to the Branford collection. The photo shows the locomotive being loaded today, leaving New York City ground (probably) for the last time, and it is due to arrive at Branford tomorrow. Bill mentioned that Branford extends their thanks to the New York Transit Museum for making this long-sought-after locomotive available to the museum.

While locomotive 7 may have been the last steeplecab with trolley poles on the New York subway system, it's not the last steeplecab. The NYCTA/NYTM still has locomotive 6 on their property, built a few years earlier than 7 but virtually identical. And of course there's the very historic NYCTA 5, the last early-style arch-window GE steeplecab in existence, built in 1910 and now part of the NYTM collection.

UPDATE: Bill has sent along some additional photos of locomotive 7 being loaded onto its Silk Road trailer along the iconic Brooklyn waterfront. These are the locomotive's old stomping grounds, just about where the old South Brooklyn Railway 39th Street Yard and its interchange with the Bush Terminal Railroad were located. All photos are copyright Bill Wall - do not copy without permission.

Helena streetcar trailer added to list

Many thanks to John Csoka, who has sent me information on the streetcar trailer shown above in Helana, Montana. I've known about this car's existence for a while, and guessed that it was probably an original car (albeit heavily restored/reconstructed) and not a replica, but it wasn't on the PNAER list because I never had any information on its history. Until now!

John relates information from the book "Montana Trolleys" that the car in question, whose number is uncertain, was built in 1890 by Brownell and is from the Helena Light & Railway 16-19 series. These four open car trailers were renumbered from 27 and 30-32 and lasted until around 1928, very near the end of streetcar service in Helena. This particular car, along with a single-truck closed car body, ended up on a farm north of Helena until a junkyard owner in Silver Star, MT bought both of them in the 1960s. He cosmetically restored this car, presumably to its current, generally sympathetic if not painstakingly accurate, appearance. Soon it found its way to a stint on display in Nevada City, probably at the then-new Alder Gulch Shortline tourist railroad. Sometime around 1974 (judging from the plaque affixed to the car) it was moved to its current location on the Last Chance Gulch pedestrian mall in Helena and it has been on display here ever since. The photo above, taken by John, shows the car's current appearance.

I'm glad to add this car to the list, even if its precise identity isn't known. There are several preserved cars on the list whose fleet numbers aren't certain, but if I know who built them, when, and for whom, I'm satisfied that there's enough information to include them. This car is pretty historic, as it's the oldest of just eight preserved Brownell cars. It's also one of just two cars from Helena - which brings me back to that junkyard owner in Silver Star. The closed car he bought is still around, too, and like this open car it appears to be owned by the City of Helena. It's HL&R 3, and last I knew - per this online article - it was undergoing restoration at Capitol High School. But there's been no update for 12 years now. Anyone know where it has ended up?

Plow leaves Seashore

It came to my attention recently that MBTA 5122, one of several Boston snow plows converted from Type 3 semiconvertibles to have been acquired by the Seashore Trolley Museum, was sold last year. The above photo from here shows the car in 2010 and it wasn't in the best shape then, so it's not too hard to see why Seashore would be willing to let it go. It's the first electric car deaccessed by Seashore since they sent their Cleveland trailer to Northern Ohio in 2010.

Car 5122 was built by St. Louis in 1908 and was later rebuilt as a snow plow. It was one of six of these plows that made their way to Seashore, with most arriving in the 1990s and 2000s. This one showed up in Kennebunkport in 1995 and I'm not sure whether it ever ran at Seashore, but it was out of service for years (one or two of the other Type 3 snow plows in the collection are regular work cars and locomotives at the museum).

It was sold last year to the Samuel Slater Experience, the new museum in Webster, Massachusetts that only recently showed up on the PNAERC list as described here. Many thanks to Tom Tello for confirming this for me. As near as I can tell, SSE decided at some point that they needed a streetcar for their museum but it seems they've changed course once or twice deciding how best to accomplish that. This video on Facebook (no login required) is from November 2019 and describes efforts to have a replica streetcar built by a contractor. By mid-2020, it appears they had instead decided to acquire car 5122 from Seashore. And by October 2020, they were the proud owners of a Los Angeles Railway single-trucker in need of little or no restoration work.

I tried contacting the Webster museum but nobody got back to me, so I don't know what their plans are for 5122. Perhaps it will be restored and put elsewhere in the museum, or perhaps its role has been filled by the LARy car. If anyone finds out where it is and what its owners are doing with it, please let me know. In the meantime, on the PNAERC list its ownership has been updated and its status has been changed to "unknown."

EDIT: This car has been scrapped, as described here.