Seashore's major collection rationalization effort, or "re-homing" drive, has turned its attention to the museum's large - and largely undermaintained- fleet of rapid transit equipment. The latest deaccession list includes no fewer than nine cars on the PNAERC list, plus two flatcars from the Boston subway system that aren't on the list.
First up: four of the museum's five massive Cambridge-Dorchester rapid transit cars from what is today the Red Line. Seashore's fleet of 1927 Osgood-Bradley-built 0700-series cars comprises the entirety of the extant early Cambridge-Dorchester fleet. No earlier cars survive, nor are any cars at all from the line preserved anywhere other than Seashore. Anyway, three of the four cars being deaccessed were already technically considered "deaccessed" because they had been acquired just as parts sources and were being used as (largely open-air) warehouses. These three have all been stored alongside Town House Shop for decades. First is car 709, shown below in a 2023 photo from the "re-homing" document.
And the last of this group is car 754, shown below in a 2023 photo from the "re-homing" document.
The only real surprise, if you could call it that, on this list is the fourth car being deaccessed, car 0753, which is shown below in two photos from the "re-homing" document.
This car doesn't look like it's in much better shape than the first three, but until now it has been on Seashore's collection list and earmarked for preservation. All four of these cars were in MBTA work service after retirement around 1970 and didn't come to Seashore until the late 1980s. The only Cambridge-Dorchester car Seashore is planning on keeping is car 0719, which it obtained straight out of passenger service in 1970 and which has operated fairly recently. Car 0719 was modernized in 1948 with a new interior layout and seats, meaning car 0753 would have been the last car of this type in its original configuration. All these cars are believed to be mechanically complete, more or less, with Brill 27MCB trucks that might be candidates for use under interurban equipment elsewhere.
And then there are two subway work flats included here just for completeness, though they're not on the PNAERC list because as far as I can tell they're basically just normal flat cars, albeit with radial Tomlinson couplers. First is car 0503, a wooden flat car built by BER in 1901, and second is car 0579, a steel flat car of unknown origin. These are both 2023 photos from the "re-homing" document.
After that, there are three MBTA work cars being deaccessed. The only one of these three that has been on the PNAERC roster is car 0575, a mostly-enclosed box motor/crane car homebuilt by Boston Elevated Railway in 1924 (though Seashore's document lists its builder and date as unknown, so who knows). Below is a 2016 photo I took of this car followed by a 2023 photo from the "re-homing" document.
The last three cars on the list are true derelicts, and have never - to my knowledge - even been on live rail at Seashore. They've also already been considered deaccessed, in that they weren't considered part of the historic collection. This trio has long been stored together in the woods a bit away from the main museum campus, where they've served as storage rooms. One is Independent Subway 175, an R-1 subway car built by ACF in 1932. I'm unclear on its precise history, but supposedly this car was a diner in Texas for a while in the 1980s before coming to Seashore in 1995. It's a body and lacks trucks or underbody equipment. The other two cars are, I believe, mechanically complete, including Standard C60 trucks, WH 301 motors and PC-10 control. Boston Elevated car 0986 and car 0996 were both built in 1928 by Wason and are deck-roof all-steel cars from the "Main Line" elevated. They're identical to cars 0997 and 01000, also at Seashore, which are in far better condition. The photos below, taken by yours truly in 2007, show the New York car on the ground flanked by the two 0900s, though I'm not sure which of the two Boston cars is which.
But quite a few other cars, including N&P 9, Mobile 49, Ottawa 825, MBTA 3608, South Shore 32, and LIRR 4137, are not on the latest edition of the "re-homing" list. I'm not sure whether any have found new homes, whether all have been written off as hopeless, or whether any have actually been cut up yet. Any updated information on actual scrapping or dismantling of cars is appreciated.
Regardless, although a couple of cars on this new list were acquired for preservation, most were already effectively on the deaccession list - and in many cases are also duplicated by better examples in the Seashore collection. It's hard to argue that getting rid of these cars isn't a good decision for the museum: nothing on this new list approaches the "Berkshire Hills" or even VEPCO 194 in historic significance. That said, many of these cars are mechanically complete, so there may be opportunities for Seashore or other organizations to improve their spare parts supplies or obtain trucks, motors and control equipment for car bodies.
No comments:
Post a Comment