North Dakota streetcar for sale

There's only one preserved electric car in the state of North Dakota, and it's for sale. Grand Forks Street Railway 102, shown above in a 2016 photo from the Heritage Rail Alliance website, is a 1911 single-truck deck-roof car built by American. At one time, cars of this exact design were common in dozens of smaller Midwestern cities, but examples of the type are quite rare today. This car was fixed up, with body restoration seemingly done in a relatively authentic manner, and given a gas engine so that it could be used to carry people through Fort Lincoln Park near Bismarck. According to this article from the Bismarck Tribune, though, the operation is now for sale. Holdings include a few miles of track, car 102, and a replica open car that appears to have seen more regular use in recent years. It sounds like the owners are trying to sell the entire operation as a package deal, and want everything to remain intact and in situ. Time will tell whether that happens.

Meanwhile, in unrelated news, Laddie Vitek sends along this Mike Trosino photo taken back in April at the Electric City Trolley Museum. It shows Philadelphia C-127, a 1923 double-truck Brill snow sweeper, operating for the first time at ECTM. This sweeper is the only survivor of a sizable collection of electric cars once owned by the late Ed Mitchell in Uniontown, PA. In 2011, after Mitchell died, the collection was disposed of. Nearly all of the cars had been stored outside in very poor condition and were scrapped; of the three cars stored inside, the only one that escaped the torch was C-127. It was stored in Baltimore from 2011 until 2020.

At that point, ECTM acquired the trucks from scrapped sister car C-124, which had had its trucks regauged to standard gauge by its then-owned, Grand Rapids Electric Railway. ECTM also opened up an indoor storage spot by selling CA&E 453 to IRM. Car C-127 was then moved to Scranton, and since then it has received roof and electrical work to make it operational. Restoration work is continuing, but it is now the second Philadelphia snow sweeper preserved in operational condition, joining car C-145 in Baltimore.