SLPS PCC returns home

Thanks to Randy Hicks for sending along this photo, taken a couple of days ago at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood, MO. The photo doesn't reveal much by itself, other than that it's a PCC car under shrink wrap, but fortunately the museum volunteers he ran into filled him in. This is San Francisco Municipal Railway 1101, which was built in 1946 as St. Louis Public Service 1700, and it arrived in Kirkwood just in the last couple of weeks. The car was retired in the early 1980s along with the rest of the Muni PCC fleet and was stored in San Francisco until sold to the Tahoe Valley Lines PCC Railway in 1995. It's been for sale for something like 15 years and its owner finally found a buyer. (Another PCC recent left the Tahoe collection, leaving only three cars still owned by TVL: two Toronto 4400's and a bizarre Frankenstein-esque double-end PCC built by welding together the front halves of two normal San Francisco PCC's.)

NMOT's plans for their new PCC aren't certain. They just haven't decided exactly what they'll do. This is the second ex-SLPS, ex-Muni PCC they've acquired recently (following car 1140) and the third ex-SLPS, ex-Muni PCC on the property when you add in restored car 1743. It's unlikely that they'll retain all three cars long-term, but possible that they may retain two (1743 and one other, naturally) for historic purposes, in which case they'll have to decide whether to keep 1101 or 1140.

Illinois Terminal 535 removed from list

A few different Facebook pages have, over the past couple of days, featured some pretty jaw-dropping photos of Illinois Terminal 535 in Harristown, Illinois. This interurban car body was offered for sale by the property owner last year but found little interest from the preservation community given its atrocious condition. So one well-meaning preservationist stepped up and made an attempt to move the car to a location at the Bloomington, Illinois airport. Unable to raise enough money to properly transport the car intact, the owner evidently planned to cut it in half, move it in two sections, and then piece it back together. However the car's condition (and its weight, which for some reason exceeded the capacity of the forklifts rented for the job) made this impossible too.

After the car had been cut in half, the decision was made to instead disassemble it on-site with the goal of eventual reassembly/restoration. However at this point, I'm removing it from the PNAERC list. While the car's owner is obviously dedicated and well-meaning, it strikes me as unlikely that the car can be realistically reassembled in its original form. At best it would be something akin to a replica, though given the paucity of resources available for the project even that seems like a tall order. The owner has also professed an interest in making the car part of a diner, which may itself disqualify the thing from inclusion on the PNAERC list even if it is reconstructed.

A history of car 535 can be found at the link above. Depending on how you look at it, IT 535 was arguably one of three preserved interurban sleeping cars. The other two are complete and still in their sleeping car condition: IT 504 at IRM and Interstate Public Service 167 in Squamish, BC.

Singer 1 to Hoosier Heartland

Singer 1, the 1898-vintage 250-volt GE switching locomotive formerly at the Indiana Transportation Museum, has been donated by its owner to the Hoosier Heartland Trolley Company. The photo above, from the HHTC website page on the locomotive, shows it being moved into that organization's barn.

Singer 1 is an unusual little industrial critter. It was used at the Singer sewing machine factory in South Bend, Indiana until retirement in 1955, after which it was bought by Bob Selle. For a time it was stored at the Illinois Railway Museum's original site in North Chicago, then later it was stored for a time in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. In 1971 it made its way to Noblesville, where it was displayed in good condition at the Indiana Museum of Transportation and Communication (later ITM) for many years. When ITM was evicted in 2018 the locomotive - still privately owned, never having been sold or transferred to ITM - was moved to Francesville, Indiana, where it has been stored since. It's the first complete piece of traction equipment owned by HHTC and also the group's first piece of freight equipment, joining a trio of interurban cars and a streetcar.

Postcard from Warehouse Point

Someone who wishes to remain anonymous has submitted some photos taken a week ago at the Connecticut Trolley Museum during that organization's "Everything That Moves" event. Many thanks for these submissions, as they have made possible some notable updates to the PNAERC list.

First, here's Bristol Traction 34, an unusual single-truck semi-convertible built by Wason in 1917. It's a body that has long sat alongside the CTM shop and at this point it seems that it has started to collapse. I'm leaving it on the PNAERC list for now, but with a note about its condition.

Here's a sad one: Chicago Elevated Railway 4284, a standard Chicago "4000" built in 1922 and acquired by CTM in 1975. In the late 1970s this car was repainted in as-built colors and some backdating work (notably the door sash) was done, but I believe its interior was left taken apart so it was never put into service. A 1979 photo can be found here. It's been deteriorating for years. This car is still part of the CTM collection and was not part of the recent deaccession and sale.

Corbin E2 is a four-wheel battery locomotive built in 1907 by Baldwin-Westinghouse. I have no idea whether it ever ran at CTM, but if it did, then it was quite a few years ago.

In the top photo, Corbin E2 is on the left and in the center is Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority 3003, the oldest extant Boston PCC car and one of five PCC's from that city at CTM. This car was built by Pullman-Standard in 1941 and acquired by CTM back in 1977. Part of its interior was restored by volunteers (you can see some fairly nice-looking ceiling panels in that second shot) but then the car was put outside and it went downhill rapidly.

MBTA 3333 is Dallas double-ended PCC, built by Pullman-Standard in 1945 as Dallas Railway & Terminal 625. It was sold to Boston in 1959 and went to CTM in 1978. Amazingly, this car actually ran as recently as about 2006, and I believe it's the most recent Dallas double-ended PCC anywhere to move under its own power.

I'll confess I'm not certain which is which, but these two are MBTA 3306 and 3309, both "picture window" PCC cars built for Boston by Pullman-Standard in 1951. I think this was the only series of PCC streetcar to be built for U.S. service with MCM control. These cars have both been at CTM since 1992 and I do not know whether either has ever run at the museum.

This is Montreal Tramways W1, a generally typical derrick work car. It was built by Industrial Brownhoist in 1910 and served until the end, going to CTM in 1959. Its cab has long sat outside the museum's shop building.

And now we get to the cars that were deaccessed in 2018. This is Chicago Transit Authority 4175, one of four surviving (perhaps "surviving" should be in quotation marks) center-entrance "Baldy" type 4000s. The car was built by Cincinnati in 1915, put into work service as work motor S360 in 1965, and retired in 1979. At that point it was briefly shipped out to the Illinois Railway Museum, where its motors were removed because CTM wanted a Baldy trailer and not a Baldy motor (the earlies "Baldies" were trailers but this one was built, and always ran as, a motor car). It then went out to Connecticut. I'm honestly not sure whether to leave it on the PNAERC list. I don't know why its steel roof is torn open like that, and it appears that part of the car side has been pushed in. This doesn't look like the car just started collapsing; it looks more like CTM has started scrapping it. Either way, it doesn't look very salvageable.

North Shore 162 is one of the two interurban cars from that line that were deaccessed by CTM in 2018 and is by far the better of the two in terms of condition. That said, its condition is deteriorating rapidly and it already looks a lot like car 710 did a decade or so ago. I'm not sure what the museum's plans are for this car right now, nor whether it has been purchased - either as a complete car or for parts - by any other group.

And here's the other North Shore car. This is car 710, built by Cincinnati in 1924. Like car 162, it went to the ill-fated American Museum of Electricity project in Niskayuna, NY after the North Shore quit in 1963 and then ended up going to CTM in 1971. Neither North Shore car ever ran in Connecticut and car 710's condition had gotten particularly bad in recent years. It now appears that CTM is in the process of scrapping the car; it's obviously been tipped off its trucks and it looks like underbody equipment is being salvaged for reuse, which is good. I have removed this car from the PNAERC roster. It is the fourth North Shore car, and first 700-series car, scrapped during the preservation era.

I cannot say with absolute certainty but I'm pretty sure that this pile of scrap metal is all that remains of Chicago Transit Authority 4409, the other 4000-series car (beside 4175 pictured above) that was deaccessed in 2018. Car 4409 was a standard, generally unremarkable 4000-series car built by Cincinnati in 1924 and acquired by CTM in 1979. Car 4409 has been removed from the PNAERC list. (That said, if I'm wrong about the identity of the subject of this photo, please let me know! I've been wrong about this kind of thing before.)

It's tough to see electric cars getting scrapped like this, but as I wrote when the museum announced the deaccession of these pieces, it makes sense to get rid of them. None of the deaccessed cars is unique in preservation and all are likely beyond CTM's means to restore at this point. Other, more historic cars at the museum, like AE&C 303, are suffering grievously for want of money and resources, and CTM is doing the right thing to pare down its collection so that it can focus a bit more on maintaining the other cars in its fleet. It appears that parts are being stripped off of these cars to facilitate the restoration of cars at other museums, and at this point that's probably the highest and best use for these pieces.

EDIT: I've also changed the status of two other cars at CTM. York Utilities 72, a Birney built in 1919 for Laconia Street Railway, and Manchester Street Railway 94, a single-truck Wason dating to 1905, are both streetcars bodies that are currently listed on CTM's website roster. However I never saw them when I visited the museum a few times 10-15 years ago and I believe the reason is that their locations had been swallowed by the forest and made them largely inaccessible except during the winter. Regardless, I've changed these two from "stored inoperable" to "situation unknown" because I have doubts they are still intact. Any clarification on their status is appreciated.

Muni PCC cars removed from list

It took me long enough but finally I noticed the, er, notice at the bottom of Market Street Railway's roster page concerning the cars that Muni offered up for sale back in 2018 as described here. Sure enough, sometime in 2019 SFMR did end up scrapping ten of the cars listed on their disposal notice (there was one car, car 1140, that escaped and was donated to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis instead, while identical car 1139 was either given a reprieve or erroneously missed on the website scrapping list). The ten cars have now been removed from the PNAERC roster, knocking the size of the Muni collection on my list from 70 cars down to 60.

The scrapped cars come from four different groups. Three are Muni "Baby Ten" cars numbered 1023, 1031, and 1038. These cars were built by St. Louis in 1951 as part of the last domestic order for PCC cars, were retired by Muni in the early 1980s, and have been in dead storage since then. There are numerous other examples of the type preserved, both on Muni rails and elsewhere. (Rather than keep repeating a version of that line, I'll just say now that none of the scrapped cars is anything like unique in preservation.)

The second group includes three 1100-series Muni PCC cars, 1106, 1108, and 1125. These three were all built by St. Louis in 1946 for St. Louis Public Service (as SLPS 1733, 1737, and 1715, respectively) and were acquired by Muni from SLPS in 1957. Car 1125 was retired by Muni in the early 1980s and stored until scrapped, while the other two passed through private ownership (1106) and something called the Western Railroaders Hall of Fame (1108) before being bought back by Muni in 2003 as potential rebuilding candidates. The photo above shows car 1108 back in 2008.

The third group includes two Pittsburgh 4000s (not to be confused with CTA 4000s), PCC cars that were very heavily rebuilt by Port Authority Transit in the late 1980s to extend their service lives. These two, PAT 4008 and 4009, used 1949-vintage PCC cars 1709 and 1700 as cores for their 1989 in-house rebuilding efforts, but as a practical matter there was more 1989 than 1949 content in them despite their PCC-esque outward appearance. They were bought by Muni in 2001 for potential rebuilding but their unique rebuilt features and sealed windows made them iffy candidates.

The final two cars scrapped were ex-SEPTA PCC cars from Philadelphia built by St. Louis in 1948. One, SEPTA 2133, was acquired by Muni back in 1990 and partly disassembled as San Francisco was considering buying Philadelphia cars for its F-Market Line heritage project. At one point this car was supposed to be car 1064, the 15th ex-Philadelphia car rebuilt for the new line, but its condition was thought to be too deteriorated at that point and it was just stored. Then there is Muni 1054, ex-SEPTA 2121, bought by SFMR in 1994 for F-Market Line service. It was rebuilt and repainted in attractive Philadelphia Rapid Transit silver-and-cream colors (a livery today worn by nearly identical car 1060). It ran in regular service in San Francisco for about 8 years but in November 2003 it was rear-ended by a speeding LRV. Fortunately nobody was killed but the PCC car was so badly damaged that it was judged irreparable.

Photo above: Peter Ehrlich, from NYCSubway.org

Drill motor goes to Kingston

New York City Transit Authority 41, a "drill motor" (known everywhere else as a cab-on-flat locomotive) built by Magor in 1930, has been acquired by the Trolley Museum of New York and has been moved to the TMNY site in Kingston. The photo above is from a Facebook post from the museum (no log-in required).

The history of this unique piece of equipment in recent decades is slightly muddy. It was built for the IND in 1930 and was apparently used in service into the 1970s. Around 1978, I believe, it was acquired by the Trolley Museum of New York but was never moved to the TMNY site in Kingston (I'm not sure TMNY was even in Kingston that early). It remained at Coney Island under the oversight of New York Transit Museum and later, possibly starting around 2008, under the oversight of the Railway Preservation Corporation, which owns several of the cars in the NYCTA historic fleet. The TMNY Facebook post describes this as "an extended loan to the New York Transit Museum... under the care of the Railway Preservation Corporation." But it is now at home in Kingston in the company of a handful of other New York subway cars. Though not operational, the car is (I believe) complete and it appears to be pretty solid. Many thanks to Mark Wolodarsky for sending along this update.