A New Home for Public Service 2651

Today Public Service Coordinated Transport 2651, one of only two standard cars from the Public Service Railway system in New Jersey and the last intact example of the line's distinctive "compromise roof" cars, was transported to its new home at Branford. It's shown above touching down in front of Sprague in an image from the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society's Facebook page.

Car 2651 was built in the PSR shops in 1917, during the war, and remained in service - I believe mostly in and around Newark - until it was retired in 1946, as the PSCT rail system was rapidly contracting. Its body was sold to a person in Long Valley, NJ, where it was discovered by fans in 1973 and purchased. The NJERHS was the car's custodian from that year until the present, through a 1974 move from Long Valley to Ringoes, on the property of the Black River & Western; a 2000 move to Phillipsburg; and a move around a decade ago to the Kinkisharyo plant in Piscataway, where the car has resided for the past few years. The car's restoration from a stripped hulk to a complete - and, as of recently, operating - car has taken 50 years, through various fits and starts. Its move to Branford will allow it to operate and carry passengers for the first time in 80 years.

The acquisition of car 2651 brings the Branford roster on PNAERC up to 92 cars and leaves NJERHS with five cars, including two Newark PCCs under tarps, the burned-out frame of a snow sweeper, a badly deteriorated "War Board" car, and the most distinctive of the lot, PSCT "El Camino" work car 5223. All except one of the PCCs are currently in Piscataway.

One final note: I don't know enough about 2651's history to say for certain, but I wonder whether its trip today to Branford is the first time in its 109-year history that it's ever left the state of New Jersey. There are more cars on PNAERC that have never crossed state lines than one might think, most of them homebuilt in the railway's shops, but it's still a small percentage overall.

Philadelphia Sweeper Removed from List

I was reading this very interesting history of the preservation and restoration of Public Service Coordinated Transport 2651, published recently by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society, when I noticed a throwaway reference on page 22. The article mentioned that Philadelphia snow sweeper C122, the 1923 double-truck Brill shown above in 2018, was finally demolished this past spring. It had been used for 45 years or so as a bunkhouse in Ringoes, New Jersey, first by the NJERHS group and then (I suppose) by the Black River & Western after NJERHS departed for Phillipsburg in 2000. This car was a good example of something only marginally "preserved," but seeing as it was at a tourist railroad - if not quite a museum - it still qualified for inclusion on PNAERC. It's now been removed, leaving the overall list at 2,089 cars.

Of course, this is no real loss. Car C122 was a stripped hulk and never stood a reasonable chance of restoration. There are also seven more of these Philly double-truck sweepers preserved, of which five are complete and in good condition, including two that are operational. It's interesting to reflect, though, that the extant examples of this type are considerably outnumbered by the ones that made it into preservation only to be scrapped later. C121 was cut up last year in Middletown, PA; C122 is described above; C124 was cut up in 2018 in Ohio after its owner died; C126 was scrapped in 2011 in Uniontown, PA, after its owner died; C132, which had been sold to Port Authority Transit in Pittsburgh but was never used there, was dismantled at PTM in 2006; C134 and C151 were both scrapped during the 1970s or 1980s at Trolley Valhalla; C143, badly damaged by vandals during years of storage near Penn's Landing, was scrapped in Baltimore in 2011; the hulk of C147 was scrapped in Rochester, NY, in 2009; and C150 was scrapped at the Fox River Trolley Museum in 1991. Sic transit gloria snow sweeper.