'Tis the Season...

...for trolley parades! In early June, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum ran their "Anything on Wheels" event which included some 16 operating cars from their collection split into three different parades (photo gallery here, no log-in required). And this didn't even include Pittsburgh air-electric PCC car 1138, which ran for the first time in 26 years this past weekend. Not counting the Mattapan fleet, 1138 is now one of only eight air-electric PCC cars in operation. That number includes two cars each from Washington DC and Los Angeles, and one each from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Toronto, and Brooklyn.

Over in Connecticut this past weekend, as shown above, it was Branford's turn. For their "Museum in Motion" event, they had 20 cars in operation including a selection of streetcars, interurbans, and work equipment. Newly operational C&LE car 116 was highlighted, of course, as was ConnCo open car 1425, which is undergoing restoration work after a long period of time out of service on static display. I believe Branford actually has more like 30 pieces of equipment that are operational, but they're limited by constraints including available volunteers in how many cars they can run at one time.

When it comes to "more is more," though, it's tough to beat IRM. This coming Saturday, IRM will hold its "70 for 70 Trolley Pageant" to commemorate the museum's 70th anniversary. It's been nearly a decade since the last time the museum held a true trolley parade - in recent years, IRM has tended toward a UK-style "gala" model for its annual Trolley Weekend. This year's parade is planned to include no fewer than 70 pieces of electric equipment in operation, which is more than any other museum beside Seashore and Branford even owns. And you can watch it all on IRM's high-def webcams at noon (or so) Central time. I recommend the Spaulding Tower webcam, though the Car Line Junction and Diesel Shop West webcams will also be good bets. Enjoy!

C&LE High-Speed Runs

Branford, which of course hosts the PNAERC database, has announced a significant milestone. Cincinnati & Lake Erie 116, their 1930 Cincinnati-built high-speed interurban car, is now operational again for the first time in many years. This makes it one of only two operational ex-C&LE cars anywhere, and the only one of the two in original C&LE livery.

Car 116 ran in East Haven many years ago, but I believe it was out of service by the 1980s and possibly earlier. Branford volunteers restored its roof but for many years it sat with the body in primer. Around 2010, it received a beautiful paint job that returned it to its original deep red color scheme, and over the past couple of years it has seen a remarkable amount of mechanical and electrical work. It was flooded by the hurricanes that hit Branford nearly a decade ago now, which necessitated the rebuilding of the car's motors as well as its PC control group and the fairly complex air system.

There are 12 pieces of equipment preserved from the C&LE: six freight motors, all in various states of disrepair; two 100-series combine bodies; and four "Red Devil" high-speeds that ran on the CRANDIC after their C&LE days ended. Of these four, 111 at Rio Vista (operational but rarely used) and 118 at Seashore (stored for quite a few years now) are in CRANDIC colors, while 119 at Worthington (tarped and deteriorating) and 116 are in C&LE paint.

Petersburg Birney Resurfaces

Many thanks to Nate Wells for sending me the above photo, taken in 2019, of a car that had dropped off my radar entirely. Virginia Electric Power Company 1215 is a standard Birney safety car built by American in 1919 for VEPCO's Petersburg system. The car's body ended up in Amelia County, where it was rescued in the 1980s. Later damaged in a tornado, I had last seen evidence of it about 10 or 15 years ago, at which time it was stored in poor condition under a bridge in Petersburg. I had switched its condition to "situation unknown" which in this case meant that I wasn't even sure it still existed.

It turns out that the car does still exist, though for better or worse its condition hasn't really changed. It's still in Petersburg but is now in covered storage awaiting possible future restoration. VEPCO 1240, built as part of the same order but assigned to Richmond rather than Petersburg, provides a model for the possibilities.

Single-Trucker Added, Single-Trucker Subtracted

Thanks to the owner of Richmond 1514, a Birney body in private hands in North Carolina that has been added to the PNAERC list, for contacting me with information on the car. The car (no current photo is on hand; the above shot is of sister car 1513 in service in the 1940s) is a standard Birney built by Brill in 1922 that ran for Virginia Electric Power in the state's capital city. Its owner is currently working on a cosmetic restoration of the car.

That covers the addition; as for the subtraction, that same individual mentioned that the Alabama Power Company single-trucker in Gadsden, Alabama, is thought to have been scrapped within the past couple of years. This car's number was unknown, but it was an eight-window car built in 1915 by Southern Car Company for service in Anniston, Alabama. It was privately owned in poor condition (this photo is reputed to show the car in the 1990s). There are now only four cars on the list that were built by Southern Car Company, and one of those - Richmond 194 - has been deaccessed by its owner and may be dismantled soon.

An Addition to the Northumberland Bunch

Using information from a couple of sources, I was able to bring the record for Erie-Lackawanna 3590 up to date - and only about 13 years late! The owner of the Everett Railroad, which was listed in PNAERC as the car's owner, posted online that he had actually sold the car sometime back. The buyer was the North Shore Railroad (not be confused with the North Shore Railroad, which is already featured in PNAERC, never mind the North Shore Line) in Northumberland, PA. Some searching around online led me to this photo by Kevin Painter (thumbnail shown above). It shows "North Shore Railroad 62540," a Lackawanna MU car said to have been purchased in 2010 from the Everett Railroad. That can only make it ex-Lackawanna 3590. Voila - mystery solved. Better late than never.

Car 3590 appears to be in tourist service, and in Northumberland it joins an odd concentration of other ex-Lackawanna MU motor cars. There's car 3549, which has been plinthed slightly below grade at a restaurant along the tracks and painted up as Pennsylvania Railroad 1910 for whatever reason. It's under a roof and looks to be in decent shape body-wise, though I believe it's effectively been "tunneled." Then there are cars 3523 and 4604, both privately owned and stored in deteriorated condition (the photos here and here make them look rough and that was nearly 15 years ago - I believe 3523 is the one that has kept its pans).