Magna Motor for Sale

If you're interested in an enormous electric locomotive with an industrial appearance, two different oddball operating voltages, and a truly hideous loading gauge, you're in luck! Kennecott Copper 402, currently on display out in the desert at the Oquirrh Mountain Mining Museum in Tooele, Utah, has been put up for sale.

KCC 402 is one of eight steeplecabs from that operator still in existence, but it's one of only two that are distinctive dual-voltage "Magna motors" built by GE in 1947 for service on the line to Magna, among other things. The other surviving example, KCC 407, is preserved at Rio Vista and has been the subject of recent evaluation work to determine suitability for restoration to operation. These locomotives are behemoths, weighing in at more than a quarter million pounds. But their outstanding feature is their height: listed at 18'8" over the rail, they're the tallest things on the entire PNAERC roster by more than a foot, and they're nearly two feet taller than the tallest non-KCC piece on the list, BC Rail 6001.

Thanks to David Wilkins, who sent me the link earlier today to the public auction listing. Unfortunately, the auction ended earlier this evening and the link no longer works, so I'm not sure how it ended up. Online posts suggest there's a group in the area that is interested in saving KCC 402. But they've got their work cut out for them, what with its isolated location and imposing size. The 2024 photo above is by Josh Lyman.

Spring Cleaning in Rusk

Interested in a Cincinnati & Lake Erie freight motor? Have we got a deal for you!

The Texas State Railroad in Rusk, Texas, is apparently doing a property cleanup, and one of the pieces of equipment included on page 5 of their disposition list is the car body shown above (2019 photo by Mitch Goldman from here), Cincinnati & Lake Erie 646. Car 646 has led a tough life: built by Cincinnati in 1930 as part of the 635-649 series of modern freight motors, it was one of seven sold to American Aggregates for conversion into a diesel locomotive. This one was modified less than some - it was shortened neither in height nor length, as some of the AmAg conversions were - but it did lose its original roof profile at either end and received a number of other changes. Anyway, at some point - I think in the late 1970s, but I'm not sure - it was acquired by the Indiana Railway Museum in French Lick. They sold it in 1999 to the group restoring Northern Texas Traction 25 in Fort Worth, which salvaged the trucks off 646 and then conveyed the body to TSRR for use as a storage container at their Rusk shop site. I believe it's been in Rusk for something over 20 years.

The car is in rough shape, even for a body, so it's probably a long shot that it will find a new home. But time will tell. The fact that the disposition list is titled "TSRR disposition-scrap list" is an indication of what's likely to transpire if a taker isn't found. By the way, more history of the 1930 C&LE freight motors can be found here. Thanks to Jeron Glander for pointing out the disposition list with 646 on it.

While I'm on the subject of the TSRR, I still haven't gotten a satisfactory answer to my question about what happened to Texas Electric 605 and 613, the two interurban freight trailers that once resided on the ground in Rusk just a few steps away from C&LE 646. They've disappeared from Google aerial and Street View photos, but I don't know whether they were dismantled or just relocated somewhere else, either on the grounds or further afield. The fact that they're not on the current disposition list also seems to suggest that they may no longer be on the property. Anyone know for certain whether 605 and 613 are still there at TSRR?

News Roundup

Unusually enough, there's news today from a few different directions, and on a few different topics.

First off, thanks to Bill Wall for passing along the news that Seashore has again updated their "re-homing list."

Most of the cars on it are the same as the last edition, but there are three new additions that the museum has decided to deaccession. The first, pictured above in a photo taken way back in 1998, is Knoxville Power & Light 410. This is a single-truck curve-side car built by Cincinnati in 1924 and retired in 1939. It's a body, of course, and is in rough shape if the 28-year-old photo is any indication. This car is a bit odd in that it's simultaneously rare and, yet, not rare. There are only six Cincinnati curve-side cars in existence, however three of them are Knoxville single-truck bodies identical to car 410. And the other two are in much better condition than car 410: car 416 has been fully (albeit non-operationally) restored in its hometown, while car 419 is unrestored but preserved in solid condition at IRM as a body.

The other two additions to the re-homing list are true oddballs on the PNAERC list. They're both diminutive rail grinders built in 1913 by the Goldschmidt Thermit Company for the Boston Elevated Railway. Above is MBTA 0517, which has certainly seen better days.

And here's MBTA 3234 (both of these photos were taken within the past few months and were printed in the new re-homing list). I'll confess, I recall seeing these cars sitting off on a siding at Seashore for many years but not until now did I know which one was which! Anyway, there was a time that small, purpose-built rail grinders like this were not uncommon on street railways. They're exceedingly rare now, though; my best guess is that they were just exceedingly uninteresting to the fans running the trolley museums back in the 1950s. Most surviving rail grinders were rebuilt from streetcars or, at the very least, had interesting car bodies. Besides these two, I think the only rail grinder of this general outline on the PNAERC list is the Kerwin-built example preserved in Mexico City.

There are now a total of 34 cars at Seashore on the PNAERC roster that have been deaccessioned, offered to other organizations, or designated for disposal. That's about 18% of their traction collection.

And now, let's proceed a few miles to the southwest and visit another one of the "three sisters," the Connecticut Trolley Museum.

The news from CTM is the precise opposite of the news from Seashore: in this case, a car is being re-accessioned. The car in question is Long Island Rail Road 4153, an MP54A1 commuter car built by AC&F in 1930. Way back in 2018, CTM deaccessioned this car and made it available to other organizations. It hasn't found a taker. However, the museum has now elected to retain it for their historic collection after all. This is good from an historical standpoint because there are very few MP54's still remaining in anything resembling original condition; in fact, I'd say there are only two, this car and sister car 1149 in Syracuse (and I don't know how complete that car is). I'm also pretty sure 4153 is the most recent MP54 to operate, as it did run at CTM during the 1970s, and maybe more recently. Many thanks to [correction!] Andy Borst of CTM for letting me know about 4153's status change.

And finally, a few more miles to the southwest, some disconcerting news comes tonight from our friends at the Rockhill Trolley Museum. They've announced on their Facebook page (full text of the announcement is below, for the record) that they have lost the use of their railroad except on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons. The other four days of the week, and the mornings of these three days, their line has been requisitioned by the East Broad Top for use by a railbike operation.

The EBT has always owned the land under RTM's railroad, but for some 60 years the two organizations have operated side-by-side in what has seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement. I'm not sure exactly what to extrapolate from this news, but I hope that the EBT finds somewhere else to put their railbikes and that they return to the past state of equilibrium with the trolley museum.

Announcement text:

Rockhill Trolley Museum would like to extend a sincere apology to our valued visitors for an upcoming change to our operating schedule.

Beginning July 1, 2026, East Broad Top Railroad will be operating standard-gauge rail bikes on our trolley line Monday through Thursday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Friday through Sunday from 8:00 AM to 12:30 PM.

Due to the change being out of our control, we are required to limit trolley rides to Friday through Sunday with departures at: 12:45 PM, 2:00 PM, 3:15 PM, and 4:30 PM. Museum store hours are being finalized and will be announced as soon as they are updated.

Purchasing trolley tickets can still be done in our museum store or online at rockhilltrolley.org and are valid for unlimited rides on the date they are redeemed. Please note our tickets are no longer available through East Broad Top Railroad at the station or online.

We understand schedule changes can be disappointing, and we sincerely regret any inconveniences. Your continued support is greatly appreciated as our volunteers continue to provide a welcoming and educational visitor experience. We look forward to seeing you this season!

Seashore Re-Homing List Update

The latest Seashore Trolley Museum "re-homing list" update has dropped, and it adds a handful of cars to the various pieces still hanging out on the list from previous editions of the list.

The most significant addition to the list is Harrisburg Railways 811, shown above in a 2016 photo. One of two Harrisburg streetcars in existence, this double-truck, arch-roof semi-convertible was built by Brill in 1918. It's of generally similar design to the other extant Harrisburg car, 1914-vintage car 710, but has steel sides. As can be seen, it also has some serious structural issues. It's the only car of its series in existence, so it's technically unique, but it's not remarkably historic.

Another addition to the re-homing list is Cleveland Transit System 113, a "Bluebird" PCC rapid transit car built in 1958 by St. Louis. This car hasn't been included in Seashore's published re-homing lists, but it was deaccessioned a couple of years ago and has been listed on PNAERC as "available for sale" since early 2024. This car is a Trolleyville alumnus, and came to Seashore in 2010 as part of that museum's dissolution. It's one of three single-unit "Bluebirds" in existence, with the other two - car 109, restored and operational, and car 112, which is probably in similar condition to 113 - both at Northern Ohio.

The other new car on the list is MBTA 0579, which isn't on the PNAERC roster. It's a flat car from the Boston 'L' system and is fitted with a small cab for use as a shove platform, but as far as I can tell, it's not electrified. The photo above is from the museum's re-homing document.

There are also quite a few cars on the latest re-homing document that have been carried over from previous editions. Boston Elevated Railway "Cambridge-Dorchester" subway cars 0709, 0749, 0753, and 0754; "main line elevated" cars 0986 and 0996; work motor 0575; and flat car 0503 (not on PNAERC), as well as New York subway car 175 were all added to the list in November 2023. Chicago Transit Authority 1 was added in October 2023, Laconia Street Railway 17 was added in March 2023, and Boston PCC 3037 has been on the list since all the way back in June 2020.

There are a lot of cars that were on previous editions of the re-homing list but are not on the current version, so it's unclear how many might still be available to other museums and how many are now slated for scrapping. Three cars added to the re-homing list in December 2025 are missing, namely MBTA 0997, SEPTA 1018, and Atlantic City 299, as is Staten Island Rapid Transit 366, added to the list in November 2023 alongside the Boston 0700s. Virginia Electric Power 194, Mobile 49, and Boston 3608 were added to the list in March 2023. South Shore 32 and Long Island Rail Road 4137, both added back in July 2022, as well as Boston PCC 3328, added to the re-homing list in 2020, have recently been stripped for parts and are known to be on the short list to be scrapped soon. Other assorted Boston PCCs listed as available back in 2020, including cars 3069, 3174, 3327, 3331, 3338, and 3344, are missing from the latest version of the list.

Finally, a couple of cars that were never included in published "re-homing" lists are slated to leave Kennebunkport. These include Roanoke "Master Unit" 51, transferred to the Roanoke NRHS chapter in 2024 but not yet moved, and SEPTA "Bullet" car 208, which is being stripped for parts prior to scrapping.

Cars for Sale

There are a couple of minor updates regarding electric cars for sale. First, Muni 1150, the ex-St. Louis Public Service PCC located in Le Grand, California, has officially been listed for sale in an online auction that concludes toward the end of October.

Judging from the photos, the car is in remarkably good shape. Other than the dust and dirt, it could have just pulled in from a revenue trip. It's quite the time capsule. With luck, this will go somewhere that can continue to keep it stored inside, though given the glut of PCCs, car 1150 will probably be fortunate to be purchased for preservation at all.

And in other news, it was pointed out to me that New Haven 4106, the only surviving "pre-Washboard" MU car from that railroad, has supposedly been sold. At least, that's what the Ozark Mountain listing says. I don't have any recent information on this car, including who might have bought it or when, so any updates would be appreciated. Although it's far - very far - from complete as an MU car, it's certainly an historic piece.

PCC Going Up for Auction in California

The story behind this post from May seems to be confirmed - per this website, the Bright's Pioneer Museum collection in Le Grand, California, is going to be sold at the end of October in an online auction. Individual lots haven't been listed yet, but a couple of the photos (including the one reproduced here) prominently show Muni PCC 1150, so you can be pretty confident it will be in the auction along with the rest of the stuff.

I have no idea what will happen to 1150, of course - and I'm not even sure whether I'll know after the auction what ended up happening to it - but it would be nice if the car went to a good home. From the photo, it looks practically pristine, without even flaking paint - just some dust and dirt.

Major Thinning of the Exporail Collection

A fascinating, and unexpected, document just issued by the Canadian Railway Museum (CRM, aka Exporail) in Delson-St. Constant, Quebec, just appeared on the Heritage Rail Alliance news feed. CRM has completed a two-year review of its collection and has decided to deaccess 40 pieces of rolling stock. This includes no fewer than eight steam engines; five internal-combustion pieces; seven freight cars; and eight passenger cars. The list also includes 11 pieces of traction equipment, all of them on the PNAERC roster.

CRM's deaccession document is thin on information about the equipment, but it seems very well thought out and their transparency about the process is laudable. They're offering the deaccessed equipment "for exchange, transfer or sale until June 1st, 2025," and they include a prioritization calendar:

December 2024, offered to Canadian railway museums

January 2025, also offered to Canadian museums of other types

February 2025, also offered to Canadian historical associations and government entities

March 2025, also offered to U.S. railway museums

April 2025, also offered to U.S. government entities

May 2025, also offered to other U.S. enterprises

The breakdown of this prioritization timetable seems quite reasonable to me, and I commend CRM on announcing it clearly at the start of the process.

Of course, my interest here is not in Pacifics and Mikados, it's in the traction pieces. I'll confess that I have less familiarity with the CRM collection than I do with any other major traction collection on the continent. It's by far the largest traction museum I've never visited in person. But it's clear that quite a few of the pieces being deaccessed are complete and of real historical significance, so I hope they find good homes.

The first piece on the list is New Brunswick Power 82, a single-truck deck-roof car built by Ottawa in 1906. This is the only carbody on the list of traction equipment - everything else is complete, or at least largely so. This is a unique piece: it ran its whole career in Saint John, NB, and was still a hand-brake car when retired around 1947. I believe it's the only preserved electric car from New Brunswick. It's on some sort of single-truck shop truck and appears to be in nice cosmetic condition.

Next up is Montreal Tramways 1317, a wood-bodied, single-ended PAYE car constructed in 1913 by Ottawa. This car is complete and appears from photos to be in decent, if tired, condition. CORRECTION: I had previously written that this piece was duplicated in the CRM collection by car 1339, but that's not accurate. Car 1317 is actually the only surviving member of the 1200-1324 series, which was the first car design built for the newly unified Montreal Tramways system in 1913. Car 1339 is part of the 1325-1524 series, which was very similar but had an arched roof rather than the railroad roof of the 1200-series cars.

The other Montreal streetcar on the list is Montreal Tramways 1953. This, too, is a duplicate in the CRM collection, and was built as part of the same order as MTC 1959, the museum's most regularly operated streetcar. These cars are single-ended arch-roof cars built in 1928 by Canadian Car & Foundry. Car 1953 was privately owned for many years after retirement and didn't come to CRM until 1975. It's missing seats and some other parts.

Half of the six non-revenue pieces from Montreal Tramways preserved at CRM are on the list, and the first is MTC 5001, an angular steeplecab built in the company shops in 1917. It's virtually identical to MTC 5002, preserved at Branford and currently undergoing restoration work.

The next piece is Montreal Tramways 3151, a single-ended cab-on-flat work motor built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1925. From the above photo, it appears to be largely intact but in rough shape, and it doesn't seem to have been the focus of much attention in recent years. (Incidentally, the above photo - taken by my father on a trip to CRM in 2002 - seems to be just about the only photo anyone has taken of MTC 3151 in the last few decades. This photo even appears on CRM's own deaccession document!)

Toronto Transportation Commission TP10 is one of only two pieces of TTC equipment preserved at CRM. It's a single-end wedge plow built in 1946 by National Steel Car and retired around the late 1970s. It's identical to TTC TP11, preserved in operating condition at Halton County. From what I can tell, it's largely complete but in rough shape.

The third piece of Montreal Tramways non-revenue equipment is MTC Y5. Of all the equipment on the deaccession list, this is the one that surprises me the most. Y5 is a motorized streetcar truck fitted with grids and a controller for use as a shop switcher. Only a couple of these things still exist in preservation (including another unnumbered example from Montreal, preserved at Branford). This one, homebuilt and dated to 1912, has been (or, at least, was) on display for years in CRM's impressive Exporail pavilion, so it's clearly in good cosmetic shape. It also takes up almost no space.

Then, we get to the interurbans. London & Port Stanley 10, shown here in a photo from the 1970s (I've never been able to find anything more recent), was one of the big all-steel cars built for that system by Jewett in 1915. It's been at CRM since retirement in 1962 but is obviously in rough condition. It's one of three cars of this series in existence (the other two are both at Halton County), and similar car 14 - built two years later and some 12' longer - is under restoration at the Elgin County Railway Museum.

Montreal & Southern Counties 104 is an attractive suburban wood car built by Ottawa in 1912. As with most of the other cars on this list, it appears to be complete but has suffered somewhat from storage outdoors. I'm not very familiar with the M&SC roster, but this car appears largely identical to M&SC 107 at Halton County, except that the latter car is a combine.

A very unusual piece of equipment for the PNAERC roster is next on the deaccession list: Quebec Railway Light & Power 105. This is one of the oldest cars on the PNAERC list, having been built by Jackson & Sharp back in 1889, nearly before "the invention of electricity." It started out as a steam-road combine but was later hauled as a trailer by QRL&P interurban cars like car 401, preserved at CRM. This car is so unusual as an electric car that its significance is somewhat limited outside of Quebec, but as an example of an 1880s passenger car, it seems quite historic. My impression is that it is complete and in moderate to good condition.

And the final piece of traction equipment being deaccessed is Canadian National 6742, a mainline commuter MU trailer built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1952. It was built for the CN Montreal suburban electric line and joins similar motor car 6734 in the CRM collection. As with QRL&P 105, this is a trailer that's being deaccessed while its matching motor car remains in the collection. Several trailers of this series are operated by tourist railroads that haul them with locomotives, but this this may be the only one of its type preserved in authentic MU configuration.

In summary, this is the largest collection of traction equipment to be deaccessed by a museum in the last decade or so except for Seashore's recent "re-homing" program - but a quick look at what is being offered makes it clear that the equipment being deaccessed by CRM is far more valuable and significant, mainly for its completeness. The museum is also deaccessing more than 25% of its traction collection, which I think is unprecedented for a museum that is relatively stable overall. CRM is being admirably transparent in their process, and I hope that the result is that most or all of these pieces find the best possible new homes.

Muni PCC Available

The Fox River Trolley Museum announced today on Facebook that they are deaccessing two pieces of equipment and making them available to other museums. One of the two pieces is on the PNAERC list: San Francisco Municipal Railway 1030, a "Baby Ten" PCC built by St. Louis Car Company in 1951 as part of the last domestic order for PCC cars ever built. The car came to FRTM in 1983, after it was retired, and ran a few times but was quickly stored because its single-ended setup doesn't work well for the museum's operations. The car is complete, but its poor condition after four decades of outdoor storage may make it challenging to find a taker. It is one of nine cars of this series still in existence (not counting the infamous double-ended Franken-PCC). Of those nine, two have been fully restored: car 1016, beautifully restored to as-built condition at Rio Vista, and car 1040, fully restored to original livery but with some modern accoutrements to permit regular operation on home turf on Muni's F Line. The remaining six cars are all owned by Muni and are in storage; given that they recently scrapped an additional three of this type, it seems unlikely they'd want this one.

Though it's not on the PNAERC list, the other car deaccessed by FRTM is likely more historic than car 1030 by virtue of being unique. It's a flat car built for Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee piggyback service. There are three CNS&M piggyback flats still in existence, but this is the only one from the railroad's second order for longer 60' cars; the other two, one at the Illinois Railway Museum and one at the National Museum of Transportation, are both 40' cars.

Jersey Shore Streetcar Threatened

The Jersey Shore Historical Society of Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, announced today on their Facebook page that contrary to previous plans, they are not going to acquire the body of Jersey Shore Street Railway 14. The car is currently stored at the Peter Herdic Transportation Museum in Williamsport, PA, but that museum has deaccessed it and wants it gone by August 2024. JSHS had come to an agreement in 2021 to acquire the car (see here) but they've decided that they need the funds elsewhere. If a new home is not found, the car will presumably be demolished.

Car 14 is a body, of course, and it's far from pristine but it looks to be in better shape than a lot of bodies out there. According to information I've received, it was built in 1894 as an open car but its builder is unknown. It originally ran in Philadelphia, first for the Electric Traction Company, then for Union Traction, then for Philadelphia Rapid Transit, where it was numbered 86. It's not clear when it went to Jersey Shore, but on JSSR it was first numbered 101 and was later rebuilt as a one-man car and renumbered 14. The photo above was taken in 2021.

Now's Your Chance

...to own a wooden interurban car of your very own! The car shown above is Northern Texas Traction 407, a parlor trailer built in 1919 by St. Louis Car Company (very late for a wood car). It was a house in Texas for many years after retirement in 1934, but in 2006 it was acquired by the Edwards Rail Car Company for potential conversion into a doodlebug (like this one, which was rebuilt by Edwards from Southern Traction 316). Unfortunately, Edwards went out of business in 2008, and the car has apparently been sitting in the old Edwards building in Montgomery, Alabama, ever since.

The car is now being auctioned off as part of the Royce G. Kershaw Jr. Estate (the source of the above photo) so get ready to place your bids! Car 407 looks fairly solid, but is also obviously stripped down to the shell after its years as a house. The estate includes a 2-6-0 Mogul, an impressive-looking wooden railroad coach, and at least two Edwards doodlebugs*, so car 407 may not exactly be the highlight. It's also not unique: of the five cars built in this series, three are still around. These include car 409, on indoor display near Rochester, New York, and car 411, subject of a beautiful cosmetic restoration and recently placed on display under a shelter in Burleson, Texas.

*EDIT: Olin Anderson points out that one of the doodlebugs is a heavily rebuilt Philadelphia & Western "Strafford car" which is not on the PNAERC list due to how modified it is.

Box Motor for Sale

Thanks to Jeron Glander for alerting me to the fact that Texas Electric 507, a freight motor built by St. Louis Car Company in 1907 for Texas Traction, has been listed for sale on Ozark Mountain Railcar. This car is (at least, to my knowledge, still) owned by the City of Waxahachie, which acquired it in 2018 as outlined here. The web page about the plans for car 507 is still visible here, but it appears that priorities have changed. The asking price for the car is $30,000, which doesn't sound very serious, but I can only assume it's negotiable. The car itself is obviously just a body, but appears more solid than a lot of bodies, presumably because it was mostly inside of a barn for many years.

Car 507 is one of just two TE box motors preserved, and may be the better of the two in terms of condition. It would be a shame to see it cut up - another TE box motor was just recently scrapped - but box motors are a tough sell to railway museums.

Seashore Deaccessing Rapid Transit Cars

Heads up, the new Seashore deaccession list just dropped!

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.

Second is car 749, shown below in a photo taken in 2007.

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.

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.

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.

The next car is Staten Island Rapid Transit 366, shown below in 2016 in a photo I took. This is a standard deck-roof SIRT heavy rapid transit car built by Standard Steel in 1925. It was retired in 1973 and stored for possible heritage use, but nothing ever came of that and in the 1980s ownership was transferred to the Trolley Museum of New York. The car was stored at the Arthur Kill Generating Station until finally it was sold to Seashore in poor condition in 1993. It is one of only two first-generation SIRT MU cars preserved; the other, car 388 at Branford, will likely soon be the last of its kind.

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.

The current "re-homing" document lists a few other cars I already had listed as being available for sale, including CTA 1, MBTA 3037, VEPCO 194, and Laconia Street Railway 17. Oh, and that battery-powered ice truck is still for sale.

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.

More on the Deaccession List

A couple of different sources have confirmed that Seashore has deaccessed another two cars, adding them to their "re-homing" list of cars to be disposed of. These two haven't yet shown up on the museum's website, but they likely will at some point.

The first is a very famous car, the "Berkshire Hills," the last surviving car from the Berkshire Street Railway. The BSR was an expansive interurban/street railway system that actually - and, probably uniquely among trolley lines - spanned four states. Running the north-south length of western Massachusetts, it had branches into Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. The sole survivor of the line was also its most opulent and famous car, the parlor car "Berkshire Hills," built by Wason in 1903. This car was gorgeous in service, and after retirement in 1932 its body was made into a diner. Seashore acquired the body in 1995 and has had it in storage since (the above photo, of the car under a tarp, is from 2016). Less than two years ago, in late 2021, Seashore even traded with another museum to acquire the correct trucks for the car. But priorities change.

UPDATE: Good news, everyone! Jordan Helzer of the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum reports that SFTM has arranged to assume ownership of the "Berkshire Hills." The car may not be moved until next year, due to the need for various types of prep work, but the car will be heading to the closest trolley museum to its original stomping grounds. Kudos to SFTM for preserving this car, and thanks to Jordan for the news.

The second car Seashore has deaccessed is Chicago Transit Authority 1, the last of the "high-speed" single-unit PCC 'L' cars from that system. This car was built by St. Louis in 1960 and not long after delivery it received high-speed motors, more modern control and a flashy paint scheme that earned it (and the other handful of cars similarly overhauled) the nickname "circus wagon." In 1974, the CTA sold the car to General Electric for use as a test car. GE used it for testing out modern control equipment - I think that at one point it was fitted with some sort of chopper control - but at some point it just got abandoned out on a siding at the GE site in Erie. It sat there for 20 or 30 years until Seashore acquired the car in 2016 (the above photo, taken in 2016, is from here). The control equipment to restore the car to its high-speed CTA days doesn't exist anymore, and as a PCC "single car" it's far from unique in preservation, but it's the only one of the high-speed cars still around so it's unique to a point.

It's likely that the re-homing will continue. Seashore's strategic plan includes some 34 electric cars listed as "not accessioned," and while that list presumably includes everything that's already on the re-homing list, there are likely a couple dozen more cars yet to go.

And that brings me to an observation that only occurred to me recently: that the greatest extent of the traction preservation movement, in terms of raw numbers of equipment, is right now. For at least 10 years or more, I'd say, the total number of cars on the PNAERC list has hovered around 2,100. For several years it's stayed within about 10 cars, with periodic reductions (like Muni paring down its collection or ITM going under) being offset by influxes of preserved cars (like a bunch of CLRV's or CTA 2400s entering preservation). But that's about to end. There are over 50 cars in Windber, PA, that will be off the list in a matter of months, and Seashore appears likely to remove another 20 or 30 in the coming years as well, though it remains to be seen how many of their deaccessed cars really do find new homes. But the contraction has begun and I don't see it being offset in the future.

Is this bad? Well, not necessarily - and it was certainly inevitable. Over-collecting during the later years of the PCC era in the 1980s and 1990s is to blame for a lot of it, and the "last roundup"-style mass acquisition of car bodies during that same era has also resulted in quite a few cars in museums that are hanging on by a string, figuratively speaking. But a lot of history is likely to go away, too. For every duplicate-twenty-times-over PCC car in Windber that gets scrapped, there may be a "Berkshire Hills." With luck, the traction preservation movement will emerge stronger, with additional resources to put toward maintaining or restoring a more focused collection. Time will tell.

Streetcar for Sale

It was only a month or so ago that Los Angeles Transit Lines 1435 came up on this very blog. It took me that long to figure out where it had ended up (the answer was the Southern California Fairgrounds in Perris, California). But it appears that it's not sticking around: it's just been listed for sale.

The photos are from the auction website where it's being sold here (link may not work for more than a few days). The listing says it needs to be removed from its current location by September 21st, which is in just a couple of days, so that's not auspicious. It remains to be seen what happens to the car after that.

Car 1435 is a Class H-3 double-truck steel car built by St. Louis in 1924 for Los Angeles Railway. It ran until 1959, when it was sold to a private owner. The owner stored it for years at the (then) Orange Empire Railway Museum, but it left there in 1975 and according to some sources it hit a bridge during transport which caused roof damage. Later, in the 1990s, it was stripped for parts to restore cars in the Muni historic fleet in San Francisco. By the early 2000s it was stored at the old Pacific Electric building and given a coat of paint, but nothing was really done with it. Orange Empire (now Southern California Railway Museum) moved the car to their site in Perris in 2016, I believe just to keep it from being cut up, and then in 2018 it was moved to its current location at the nearby fairgrounds.

It's one of five H-type LARy cars preserved, and one of three H-3 class cars, so it's not particularly significant - especially given that the others are all complete and this one definitely isn't.

North Dakota streetcar for sale

There's only one preserved electric car in the state of North Dakota, and it's for sale. Grand Forks Street Railway 102, shown above in a 2016 photo from the Heritage Rail Alliance website, is a 1911 single-truck deck-roof car built by American. At one time, cars of this exact design were common in dozens of smaller Midwestern cities, but examples of the type are quite rare today. This car was fixed up, with body restoration seemingly done in a relatively authentic manner, and given a gas engine so that it could be used to carry people through Fort Lincoln Park near Bismarck. According to this article from the Bismarck Tribune, though, the operation is now for sale. Holdings include a few miles of track, car 102, and a replica open car that appears to have seen more regular use in recent years. It sounds like the owners are trying to sell the entire operation as a package deal, and want everything to remain intact and in situ. Time will tell whether that happens.

Meanwhile, in unrelated news, Laddie Vitek sends along this Mike Trosino photo taken back in April at the Electric City Trolley Museum. It shows Philadelphia C-127, a 1923 double-truck Brill snow sweeper, operating for the first time at ECTM. This sweeper is the only survivor of a sizable collection of electric cars once owned by the late Ed Mitchell in Uniontown, PA. In 2011, after Mitchell died, the collection was disposed of. Nearly all of the cars had been stored outside in very poor condition and were scrapped; of the three cars stored inside, the only one that escaped the torch was C-127. It was stored in Baltimore from 2011 until 2020.

At that point, ECTM acquired the trucks from scrapped sister car C-124, which had had its trucks regauged to standard gauge by its then-owned, Grand Rapids Electric Railway. ECTM also opened up an indoor storage spot by selling CA&E 453 to IRM. Car C-127 was then moved to Scranton, and since then it has received roof and electrical work to make it operational. Restoration work is continuing, but it is now the second Philadelphia snow sweeper preserved in operational condition, joining car C-145 in Baltimore.