San Diego car bodies acquired by SDERA

The San Diego Electric Railway Association has announced on Facebook (no login required) that they have acquired the three preserved Class 1 streetcars built for San Diego in 1912. Their newsletter from the end of last year confirms that these cars, all of which were owned by the late Chris Chaffee and preserved under the auspices of his "Historic San Diego Class 1 Streetcars" organization, were donated to SDERA by Mr Chaffee's widow.

All three cars were built by St. Louis Car Company in 1912 and were retired at the end of the 1930s. Car 138, shown in the photo above from the SDERA Facebook post, is in the best condition and its body was cosmetically restored by Mr Chaffee. The car had made occasional appearances in parades in this restored condition. The other two are car 126 and car 128, both also pictured in the Facebook post. These two are in worse condition but from the photo they still appear to be reasonably solid, no doubt aided considerably by the arid climate.

All three cars served as houses from c1939 until acquired by Mr Chaffee in 1996. Car 138 is now on display at the SDERA site at National City while the other two are stored towards the back of the property. These three cars were the only cars on the PNAERC list to have been owned by "HSDC1S" so that organization is now a former, not current, owner, and SDERA's collection (not counting a couple of foreign cars) is up to eight cars. Considering that 20 years ago SDERA owned none of these cars and that six of the eight are of local significance, that's pretty impressive.

Missing streetcar in the Upper Peninsula

I keep a list of "mystery cars," most of which appear to have been preserved at some point but then dropped off the radar. One of these is the car pictured here: Marquette County Gas Light & Traction 15.

I'm not sure who built it for MCGL&T, a small streetcar line that ran between Ishpeming and Negaunee in Michigan's Upper Peninsula between 1893 and 1927. It may have been purchased secondhand. But it was in existence as recently as 2014 according to this newsletter (PDF) posted online by the Negaunee Historical Society. At that time, the car was said to have been moved from a previous storage location outside the Negaunee Senior Center to a "temporary storage" site. A 2010 forum post here provides additional information, including the car's fleet number: 15. The post also indicates that 2010 was when the car was moved from the Senior Center and claims that it was moved to the Tracy Mine, an abandoned mine east of Negaunee. Google aerial images and online "urban explorer" photos show some pretty impressive extant buildings at the Tracy Mine site but no sign of the streetcar. I've tried contacting the Negaunee Historical Society but without luck.

So, anyone know what happened to MCGSL&T 15? Is it still at the Tracy Mine site, possibly even stored inside one of the buildings? Or was it demolished or otherwise lost during the last seven years?

EDIT: This car has now been added to the PNAERC list, but not as a MCGSL&T car! See here.

Warehouse Point questions

"Hey," you say, "that's not an electric car." And it surely isn't. It's the LEV2, a British railbus constructed in 1980 by Leyland/Wickham and intended as a prototype for the American market. But railbuses were never as popular in the US as they were in Britain and this unloved example bounced around a bit before landing at the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, CT.

It was one of several pieces of equipment deaccessed by CTM in 2018 and offered for sale. As outlined in this blog post, the sale also included six pieces of electric equipment: both of the museum's North Shore interurban cars, a Long Island Railroad MP54 commuter coach, a Canadian National boxcab electric locomotive, and two Chicago 4000-series 'L' cars.

The reason this post features the LEV2 is that it has come to light within the past week that the British railbus is no more. Despite efforts to buy it from CTM and possibly repatriate it to the UK, the museum has apparently cut it up. Rumor has it that at least one of the North Shore cars may also have been cut up, despite offers from other museum groups to acquire that car as a parts source for other restoration projects. So the question is: can anyone confirm what electric cars, if any, have been scrapped at Warehouse Point in the last couple of years? Are any of the six electrics offered up for sale in 2018 still available for sale? Any information is greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: this question has more-or-less been answered.