Pacific Electric in Argentina

Many thanks to Marcelo Soto, a volunteer with Ferroclub Argentino, the largest rail preservation organization (I think) in Argentina. Marcelo posted photos of the just-completed cosmetic restoration, or restauración estética, of one of their steeplecabs, and I was rather surprised when I saw the result.

Sure enough, it's an honest-to-goodness Pacific Electric steeplecab. There are five pieces of equipment on the PNAERC roster listed under Ferroclub, and they're all ex-PE pieces that later went to the General Urquiza Railway out of Buenos Aires, where Ferroclub is located: three steeplecabs, one boxcab locomotive, and an ex-Hollywood car that GUR turned into a line car. Anyway, until recently the locomotive above was listed on PNAERC as GUR 953 and it looked like this. Marcelo had posted before that the locomotive was being repainted, and I assumed it would emerge from the work in GUR guise, but Ferroclub elected to go with the locomotive's older (though not quite original) guise.

So, its primary identity in PNAERC has now been changed to Pacific Electric 1592, the number it wore from 1947 - when PE bought it from Central California Traction, its second operator after original owner Red River Lumber Company - until about 1960, when it went to South America. Granted, it still wears a few later modifications like buffers and MCB trucks salvaged from ex-PE Elevens, but it's hard to deny that it looks terrific. They even got little details like the safety messages right. Kudos to Marcelo and the other volunteers at Ferroclub for this remarkable transformation!