Another round of Seashore deaccessions

Seashore is continuing with a program of thinning their collection. Following the deaccession of two cars in July and a third in November, they've just announced plans to "re-home" an additional six cars. So get your shopping lists ready - here's what's slated to leave Kennebunkport, one way or another:

First up is Laconia Street Railway 17, shown here in a photo from the Seashore announcement taken within the past week. It's the body of a double-truck wooden streetcar built in 1901 by - you guessed it - hometown car builder Laconia, and according to my notes is technically privately owned but has been stored on the ground at Seashore since 2001. At one time it was a very nice example of an early double-truck New England city car (in-service photo here) but as can easily be seen, it's in rough shape. Supposedly it's one of two Laconia Street Railway cars in existence, but the status of the other - a Birney body at Warehouse Point - is uncertain and that car may have been scrapped.

Next up is Newport & Providence 9, shown here in a 2019 Scott Linscott photo. Open car bodies are always kind of insubstantial, but this one is less solid than most, and sources suggest it collapsed over one of its trucks last year. Another Laconia product, it was built in 1904 and was a house in Newport after retirement. It was at the Old Colony & Fall River Railroad Museum for a time in the 1980s and came to Seashore in 1990. Oddly enough, sister car 8 was also turned into a house and is not only still in situ, it's an AirBnB!

Virginia Electric Power 194 is next, shown here in a 2022 photo from the Seashore announcement. This car was built in 1911 by the Southern Car Company for the Richmond & Henrico, joining the Richmond city system three years later. It's one of just five Southern electric cars still in existence and the only surviving streetcar from Richmond that isn't a Birney. Its design is a bit unusual, sporting an early arched roof and all-wood construction but with steel-sheathed sides (in-service photo of identical car). It's also a body, though, and is pretty badly wracked in addition to missing most of one end.

Next on the list is another car from the Old South, Mobile Light & Railroad 49, shown here in a 2022 photo from the Seashore announcement. It's the body of a single-truck streetcar built in 1930 by Perley Thomas. It's unfortunate that the car is in such wretched shape because it's kind of significant, actually. Seashore says it's the last single-truck streetcar ever built in the U.S., which I believe. It's also a rare example of a single-truck Perley Thomas car and it's the only streetcar preserved from Mobile I've been able to identify (a second car is supposed to be stored in a warehouse in its home city but I haven't been able to find much information on it). If you're wondering what exactly you're looking at in the above photo, the end of the car fell off or was removed and has been stowed inside the body. An in-service photo of this series can be found here.

Things could be worse, though. Next on the list is Ottawa Transportation Commission 825, shown here in a 2020 photo from the Seashore announcement. A once-handsome deck-roof double-truck car built in 1923 by (who else) Ottawa Car Manufacturing Company, today car 825 is just a shell - and not much of a shell at that. The car's deck roof collapsed into the car body sometime in the late 2010s and the Seashore announcement notes that the car's frame is broken. Like N&P 9, this car probably isn't leaving Kennebunkport intact. This car is the only example of its series preserved, however Ottawa cars 854 and 859 are extremely similar and are preserved intact in Canada.

The last electric being "re-homed" in this round is Boston Elevated Railway 3608, a side dump motor built by Differential in 1926. It's one of three side-dump motors from Boston in the Seashore collection and is a bit unusual; built using equipment from an older dump car, it has Taylor trucks rather than the usual Diffco arch bars. It's the only car in this deaccession round that isn't a body, the only one that is a work car, and the only one from Boston. It's been at Seashore since 1954, longer than most trolley museums have existed.

The "re-homing" document also includes South Shore 32, which was part of the July 2022 deaccession round, but doesn't include LIRR 4137 or MBTA 3283, also deaccessed in 2022. I'm not sure whether they've found takers or whether they've already been disposed of. And there are some non-electric pieces in the latest deaccession round, including a 46-foot long wooden caboose and a URTX reefer.