Plans for the new year

News has surfaced thanks to this article that plans are afoot to move the stranded New York Central locomotives in Glenmont to a new home at the Danbury Railroad Museum. The two electrics in Glenmont (there are also two diesels and several passenger cars) are certainly historic. NYC 100, shown above, was the very first S-motor built and was outshopped in 1904 as NYC&HR 6000. It was retired in 1964 and given to the stillborn American Museum of Electricity in Niskayuna, but in the 1970s that plan collapsed and the locomotive was acquired by the Mohawk & Hudson Chapter NRHS. The other electric is NYC 278, the last surviving T-motor, built in 1926 and retired (I think) in 1980. As of the 1980s, these two locomotives were in very good cosmetic condition, but when the M&H chapter got evicted from the Colonie D&H shops they made the ill-fated decision to move their collection to a stretch of track through the woods on the grounds of the Glenmont power station.

Over the years this piece of track was isolated by the removal of bridges and track so the equipment was trapped. Now everything needs to be gone, and pronto, for construction of a planned factory. It remains to be seen whether the two NYC electrics end up at Danbury or in a scrap dumpster, but hopefully this story has a happy ending.

Nearly at the other end of the country, more plans are being formulated by the Phoenix Trolley Museum (aka the Arizona Street Railway Museum). Following eviction from their former home on leased land in a city park, they've purchased a plot of land nearby on Grand Avenue near Pierce. With this vital step complete, they now have a plan (rendering shown above) for the site that seems, to me at least, to be eminently sensible. Their showpiece streetcar, Phoenix Street Railway 116, won't be in operation but will acquire its own shelter and exhibit area at the back of the property. An identical car which I believe is intended to be PSR 509 will apparently be kept as a body to interpret post-railway use of streetcars. (The Fort Smith Trolley Museum and a couple of other groups also have exhibits like this.) The museum's Phelps-Dodge locomotive (shown in the rendering, amusingly, as a steam engine) will also be displayed, and there will evidently be room for events.

The museum owns - or at least did own - one additional Phoenix streetcar, PSR 504, memorable largely because for a time it served as the monkey house at a zoo. Unfortunately I'm not sure where it went after the museum was evicted from the park. Any information would be appreciated.

Lackawanna MU cars move to new owner

Thanks to River Rail Photo, from where the above picture by Marc Glucksman comes, for posting the news that the two Lackawanna MU cars formerly stored on a siding in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, have been purchased by SMS Rail Lines and removed to the SMS yard in Bridgeport, NJ. The cars are both motor cars built in 1930, 3557 and 4624, and they've been sitting on that siding near the Croton-Harmon Yard since September 1986. Until recently, at least, they were rare examples of Lackawanna MU cars that had retained their pantographs (and perhaps the rest of their electric equipment?) but other than that they're bog-standard MU motor cars from that railroad. It seemed they were being somewhat maintained, insofar as there aren't any broken windows or obvious roof failures evident, but their real condition is unknown. Also uncertain is the plan for them; SMS runs some historic diesels in short line and switching service, and has a steam engine they're working on restoring, but I don't think they've run passenger trains before. That said, I'm not very familiar with SMS and this is the company's first appearance on the PNAERC roster.