Lake Shore Electric Car Scrapped

Thanks to Richmond Bates of the Seashore Trolley Museum for confirming that they have recently scrapped Lake Shore Electric 171, shown above in a 2016 photo.

Car 171 was a 1918 Jewett-built interurban coach and ran for the LSE until the end in 1938, after which it became a diner in Monroeville, Ohio (see here for a couple of 1979 photos of it as a diner). Seashore acquired the body in 1987 as part of their "Last Roundup" campaign of car body acquisition. Unfortunately, as you can probably tell from the above photo, car 171 was in wretched condition. The LSE Jewetts tended to suffer badly from body rot - I'm not sure whether this was the type of steel used or something else - and car 171 was badly deteriorated even before it arrived in Kennebunkport. It's hard to argue that the decision to dispose of the car wasn't a good one.

There are now 16 LSE cars still in preservation including two other cars from this same series, one of which has been cosmetically restored. As for Seashore, their roster on PNAERC now stands at 191 pieces of equipment. Car 171 is the second car scrapped since they started their collection rationalization effort.