North Shore 162, shown in a photo posted by Rob Brogle to Facebook here (no login required), is back in home territory for the first time in nearly 60 years. It's been unloaded in Mukwonago, on the East Troy Electric Railroad, and will be held for future restoration. The car's PNAERC record has been appropriately updated to change its ownership from Connecticut Trolley Museum to ETER. It's in rough shape, but mostly complete and certainly restorable with enough work.
As I've mentioned before, East Troy has been on an acquisition spree lately. They're now up to 25 electric cars, plus a few freight cars that are not on the PNAERC list. But they're somewhat unusual among museums in that most of the preserved cars that passed through East Troy are not currently owned by ETER.
A while back, evidently when I had way too much time on my hands, I made this graph showing the electric cars that I know have passed through preservation in East Troy. The first group in East Troy was The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society. For a while it coexisted with the privately-owned Wisconsin Trolley Museum, which started out in North Prairie, Wisconsin, and then moved to East Troy and renamed itself the East Troy Electric Railroad. This was shortly after TWERHS was "evicted" from the actual East Troy-to-Mukwonago railroad, which was owned by the village of East Troy (confused yet?). In 1988-1989, TWERHS disbanded itself as a museum and sold off its entire collection, mostly to IRM. The size of ETER's collection has risen and fallen over the years. An impressive fleet of South Shore cars was amassed over time, while in the late 2000s and early 2010s there was an aggressive campaign to sell or scrap equipment. But at this point, ETER seems to be on firmer footing - it's no longer privately owned, but is rather run by a more typical nonprofit, and has a solid volunteer base.
As an aside, I should note that a few cars that were sold by TWERHS or ETER were later scrapped by other organizations, and those are shown in the chart as "sold" and not "scrapped." Only cars that were cut up in East Troy - or Mukwonago - are included in the "scrapped" category.
Frank, What happened to the open car that was in Appleton? I do not recall it was preserved vs a reproduction. Thank you ~Wesley
ReplyDeleteWesley, do you recall any more information on that open car? I don't recall an open car in Appleton when there was a small trolley museum located there, but there may have been one I wasn't aware of. I only recall a single spam can and the two Milwaukee streetcars, plus they supposedly owned the La Crosse Birney body for a little while.
ReplyDeleteI recall it was a home built single truck open car. I will ask over at RyPN.
DeleteIs it possible that you're thinking of East Troy's homebuilt open car? It's certainly conceivable that this was moved to Appleton for a brief visit at some point. If this is the car, then it's still in East Troy, but not listed on PNAERC because it's a replica. See top photo here: https://www.cera-chicago.org/Blog/3319096
DeleteI saw that open car when it was under construction at North Prairie. It is a nice product, but I have not seen a prototype for the high arch it has in the center. I think it was made on a Belgian truck. .... Frank was CA&E 318 the first car scrapped at Mukwanago? What happened to its trucks?
DeleteYou're correct on the Belgian truck under the ETER open car. As for the 318, it was certainly among the first cars scrapped at Mukwonago. It's actually in that graph as "sold" because technically it was sold to IRM, and then scrapped by IRM, though that job was indeed done at Mukwonago. There was a Milwaukee streetcar body that was scrapped by TWERHS pretty early, but I'm not sure where it was cut up. The trucks from the 318 are at IRM, and have been in use as shop trucks, at least until recently. Additionally, two of the 318's motors were overhauled c2002 and are currently in service under car 309, while one of the 318's contactor boxes went to PTM and is intended for the "Toledo."
ReplyDeleteFrom P. Averdung, builder of the East Troy open car.
ReplyDelete"Good morning all. Regarding open car 21 at East Troy. The truck is not from Belgium, it is from Milan Italy. I had the great satisfaction of negotiating and importing it myself. On the truck is a number plate with 21 on it. So I numbered the car 21.
For two years the car had Green Bay Traction Company on the letter board. I did this because the Green Bay Packers were winning. So you may see photos of that version. I also am the builder of the car. The car has Belgium controllers and UH10 air compressor."