Many thanks to Andy Nold for sending along this link to an auction of three ex-M&O/Tandy Subway electric cars. Of the three cars in question, I believe that only two are currently on the list: Tandy 1 (not to be confused with the other Tandy 1) and Tandy 4. Both of these are squared-off "Winnebago-style" Tandy subway cars whose bodies are basically of late-1970s vintage, but whose electrical and mechanical equipment - and probably portions of the frame - started out as PCC cars. Tandy 1 was built off of Boston PCC 3166, a 1945 Pullman-Standard product, while Tandy 4 was built from DC Transit 1506, a St. Louis product of similar vintage. As for the third car, which is largely gutted, I'm not even sure what its identity is. I believe that all three have been owned by North Texas Historic Transportation, but word on the street is that NTHT is either contracting or folding altogether and it appears these three cars are being auctioned off by the local transit agency. So if you want air-electric PCC car parts, here's your ticket. The cars are located in a lot here.
And if anybody has more information on the existing Tandy cars, I'd appreciate it. My roster of ex-Tandy cars (I've used Tandy interchangeably with M&O on the list although the latter preceded the former as operators of the subway line so they're really not synonymous) is a bit of a mess. Of the seven cars on that particular list, only three are what I'd consider definitely accounted for: the "other" car 1, now restored and on display; car 2, a "Winnebago" style car, owned by McKinney Avenue and currently in storage; and DC Transit 1540, an unrebuilt PCC which returned home to Maryland. The other four include two of the cars now up for auction and two other cars that were bought by Brookville. But I'm not even sure they still exist - Brookville may have scrapped them at some point - and there's evidently a third (gutted) car in that lot in Fort Worth that's not on my list. Help is needed!
MYSTERY SOLVED: The mystery of the surviving Tandy cars ended up being solved - the two Brookville cars were confirmed scrapped, and the cars up for auction described in this post failed to find buyers and were similarly cut up.
Pictures I’ve seem to show only stripped bodies.
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at the cars near the end of the Tandy operation the mechanical systems were clapped out.