No sooner does the South Shore Line Museum Project announce itself, than it expands its collection. Notice was posted online that South Shore 203, the last surviving coach trailer from that interurban line, left East Troy's site near Mukwonago, WI, today en route to the SSLMP. The photo above, by Joe Stupar, dates to 2010 and shows the car's current condition. This car, built by Pullman in 1927, was part of the National Park Service collection that was conveyed to East Troy back in 2010. It had been stored at a steel plant in East Chicago, IN, (and before then in Beech Grove, IN) along with three coaches and a combine - all from the South Shore - but when the NPS decided to finally give up on plans to create a heritage interurban railway, these cars went to East Troy, the only museum to regularly operate South Shore cars. The only restored car of the lot was backdated car 33, which has since entered service at East Troy. The others, including car 203, were in various states of "rough" and have been kept indoors but unserviceable.
Car 203 is the last South Shore trailer; this particular variety has fared particularly poorly in preservation. After the railroad was abandoned and the cars sold off, there were five or six 200-series trailers saved. But one by one they ended up scrapped, with car 205 the most recent to go, a victim of the IMOTAC dissolution debacle. Interurban coach trailers as a category are rare, and by my count car 203 is one of only five complete examples in existence. SSLMP may not have a place to display or operate the car yet, but it seems a given that this last surviving example of its type will have a secure spot in its new home.
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