Tex-Mex Removals

Today's update comes with a southwestern flavor. First, I've removed Texas Electric freight trailer 608 from the PNAERC list. This 1921 homebuilt interurban freight trailer has been on display in the middle of Van Alstyne, Texas, since 1996. For most of that time, it's been plinthed near TE box motor 501 and the two cars have been mostly ignored, which in the arid Texas climate isn't as fatal as it would be many other places. Recently, car 608 got some attention, and as of August 2023 it looked like this:

I have no idea what those boxes over the ends are. Anyway, thanks to Phil Randall, who sent me this link to a Patreon page for car 608. It appears that the Northern Texas Traction Club was raising money to fix up car 608, but instead the city has mostly scrapped and rebuilt the car. As near as I can tell, the only original pieces left above floor level are some of the end and bulkhead framing and the car lines, which look like they were removed and then reattached atop a newly built steel-tube frame. The city also subtracted the baggage door from one side and added bus doors.

With almost nothing of the car's original fabric left, I don't consider it preserved. It's been removed from the list, following box motor 501, which was cut up last year. Thus ends the City of Van Alstyne's presence on the PNAERC list.

The second piece of equipment to be removed is (or, rather, was) a bit more impressive. Ferrocarril Mexicano 1012 was a 155-ton six-axle boxcab locomotive built by GE in 1923. Since sometime in the 1970s, I believe, it was plinthed alongside the railroad in Ciudad Mendoza, near Veracruz in Mexico. It's shown here in a Google Street View image from 2012.

More recent Street View images had shown that the locomotive had disappeared from this spot, though, as described last fall. Thanks to our official researcher, Wesley Paulson, who tracked down this YouTube video that was made 10 years ago. The caption information is in Spanish, which may be why I didn't find it, but it appears to show locomotive 1012 being hauled away in large chunks in April 2013. So, that's unfortunate. At least there are three other locomotives of this series still preserved, and none of those seem to be in any particular danger. With these removals, the PNAERC roster is currently at 2,096 pieces of equipment.