Not Quite Preserved

As you may already be aware, there's an adjunct to the PNAERC list that I've been maintaining for a few years, the "not-quite-preserved" list. If you view this blog on desktop, the link is at the bottom of the right column; if you're viewing the mobile version, there's a link at the bottom to view the desktop version. Anyway, this "non-preserved" list includes cars that don't qualify as "preserved" by PNAERC standards: they're electric cars that are currently in use as houses, sheds, buildings, or just sitting derelict somewhere. I've only been maintaining this list for a few years, and the owners of these cars typically don't particularly want them publicized, so the list is just a drop in the bucket of what's actually out there. But it's mildly interesting nonetheless.

So my thanks go out to a couple of folks who've written just in the last few days and contributed four new cars to the not-quite-preserved list. First up are two cars in Goffstown, New Hampshire, submitted by Ellie Flint. The first, above, is evidently Manchester & Nashua 8, if the number on the end is to be believed (and why not?). There are some nice interior photos at a real estate listing online that suggest this very likely is M&N 8, a car built by Laconia in 1907 to the same basic plan as Manchester 38 at Seashore - the main difference being that cars 7-12 were one window longer. And then right next door, the house immediately adjacent also has an electric car sticking out the end. To my eye, this looks a lot like another Manchester Street Railway car, but MSR had a lot of these square-window, railroad-roof cars, so I haven't a clue which one this might be.

And then thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski, who sent along a Street View link that shows a pair of Georgia Power Company streetcars attached to a building in Hampton, Georgia. I guess I can't be 100% certain these are Atlanta cars, but I'm 99% certain - they look a whole lot like 900-series Georgia Power cars, identical to car 948 preserved in operating condition at Branford. All four cars, both Manchester cars and both Atlanta cars, have been added to the "non-preserved" list. And if you know of an electric car body that's missing from the list, drop me a line!

Finally, let's return to the land of the living - and by living, I mean preserved and on the PNAERC list. Bill Wall sends along this link which shows an entertaining time-lapse video of Public Service 4584, Branford's New Jersey center-entrance streetcar trailer, getting washed down. I've changed 4584's status from "stored" to "undergoing restoration" thanks to an update Bill sent:

Work is still being done on the interior.  A complete Tomlinson coupler assembly was gotten for it, with coupler and has since been reinstalled.  The interior is nearly 100% done, including all the missing manual door controls, conductor’s position and so on. All the seating and frames were made new.  The IRM archives came in handy as we were able to get a complete set of prints for the car (it’s an Osgood Bradley).  The trucks on it were salvaged from... Queensboro Bridge car 601, which are somewhat close to what it had.  The material was gotten for below the floor for the brake system.

Center-entrance streetcar trailers were a brief fad and were really only built for about 10 years, from the mid-teens to the mid-1920s. Ten still exist, of which two are little better than frames and three more are stripped bodies. Thanks to the restoration work done on PSCT 4854, I'd say it has vaulted ahead of CSL 9020 and Denver Tramways 610 to qualify as the third most complete of the survivors. The only one of the group that's still 100% complete - for the moment, at least - is SLPS 426, which not coincidentally is the only one that was preserved more-or-less immediately upon retirement from passenger service. (You can read more about streetcar trailers here.)