North Shore 228 Restored

Hot on the heels of Illinois Terminal line car 1702 being outshopped by IRM, another Midwestern organization has restored and operated a piece of non-revenue equipment that hadn't run since retirement. This is Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 228, a box motor (known as an "MD car," or merchandise despatch car, on the North Shore) built by Cincinnati Car Company in 1922 and just completed at the East Troy Electric Railroad. It's shown above in a photo from this Facebook group depicting a test run a few weeks ago; its official debut was this weekend, like IT 1702 during a private event.

Car 228 was one of an ill-fated trio of electric cars that made their way to the Indiana Railway Museum in Westport, Indiana, around 1963. The three cars - 228, North Shore combine 250, and Chicago Aurora & Elgin steel-sheathed wood coach 318 - were purchased from the Westport group by The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society (TWERHS), which at the time operated over the East Troy line, around 1971. The two North Shore cars made it to TWERHS intact, but car 318 had its ends crushed during a Penn Central switching accident and was later scrapped for parts in Mukwonago.

The two North Shore cars were in rough shape, though. Combine 250 was acquired by IRM when TWERHS folded in 1988 and later scrapped; MD car 228 stayed in East Troy and work on rebuilding it began but was suspended for some 25 or 30 years. In 2022, though, the MD car went into ETER's new shop building in Mukwonago to complete the job. Of the five North Shore MD cars preserved, this is one of two that is operational and is the only one to have undergone a complete restoration.

North Shore 162 returns home

North Shore 162, shown in a photo posted by Rob Brogle to Facebook here (no login required), is back in home territory for the first time in nearly 60 years. It's been unloaded in Mukwonago, on the East Troy Electric Railroad, and will be held for future restoration. The car's PNAERC record has been appropriately updated to change its ownership from Connecticut Trolley Museum to ETER. It's in rough shape, but mostly complete and certainly restorable with enough work.

As I've mentioned before, East Troy has been on an acquisition spree lately. They're now up to 25 electric cars, plus a few freight cars that are not on the PNAERC list. But they're somewhat unusual among museums in that most of the preserved cars that passed through East Troy are not currently owned by ETER.

A while back, evidently when I had way too much time on my hands, I made this graph showing the electric cars that I know have passed through preservation in East Troy. The first group in East Troy was The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society. For a while it coexisted with the privately-owned Wisconsin Trolley Museum, which started out in North Prairie, Wisconsin, and then moved to East Troy and renamed itself the East Troy Electric Railroad. This was shortly after TWERHS was "evicted" from the actual East Troy-to-Mukwonago railroad, which was owned by the village of East Troy (confused yet?). In 1988-1989, TWERHS disbanded itself as a museum and sold off its entire collection, mostly to IRM. The size of ETER's collection has risen and fallen over the years. An impressive fleet of South Shore cars was amassed over time, while in the late 2000s and early 2010s there was an aggressive campaign to sell or scrap equipment. But at this point, ETER seems to be on firmer footing - it's no longer privately owned, but is rather run by a more typical nonprofit, and has a solid volunteer base.

As an aside, I should note that a few cars that were sold by TWERHS or ETER were later scrapped by other organizations, and those are shown in the chart as "sold" and not "scrapped." Only cars that were cut up in East Troy - or Mukwonago - are included in the "scrapped" category.

Another car headed to East Troy

East Troy is on an acquisition spree, as noted in this post from their Facebook page over the weekend (no log-in required). The next car on their list, due to arrive sometime later this month, is Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 162 (its owner will be updated once the car is physically moved). Following the recent dismantling of car 154, this is now one of two surviving cars from the North Shore's original order for steel cars, the other being car 160 at IRM. Car 162 was built by Brill in 1915 and retired from service when the North Shore quit in 1963. At that time it went to Niskayuna, New York, to be a part of the planned American Museum of Electricity. Unfortunately this project never got off the ground, and car 162 (and 710, which was scrapped last year) went to the Connecticut Trolley Museum in 1971.

It has sat there ever since, never operating (I believe it may have been stripped of some metal while in Niskayuna), but with a tarpaper roof that protected it somewhat better than car 710. Its condition is very rough, no doubt, but largely complete. Once restored, it would be the second North Shore interurban car at East Troy.

This also means that of the six electrics deaccessed by CTM in 2018 (article here), only two are really still in limbo: the mainline electrics, LIRR 4153 and CN 6714. Car 162 has now been sold, one CTA 'L' car and one North Shore car have been scrapped, and the other CTA car - CTA 4175 - is, according to photos taken a few weeks ago, still in partially-scrapped "can-opener victim" condition from last fall. But its ultimate fate can hardly be in doubt. Anyone interested in an MP54?

ON AN UNRELATED TOPIC... a comment was posted that Pittsburg County Railway 32, a wood interurban car body on display in McAlester, Oklahoma, has been destroyed by fire. Can anyone confirm or offer more details?

La Crosse city car saved

News has arrived that Mississippi Valley Public Service 56, a double-truck city car from La Crosse, Wisconsin, has been acquired for preservation by the East Troy Electric Railroad. The car is a new addition to the PNAERC roster, as it was formerly in private ownership in northern Wisconsin but details on its whereabouts and status were so sketchy that I'd never felt confident in adding it. Now, since its arrival at Phantom Woods yesterday, it definitely qualifies as preserved. Many thanks to ETER volunteer Eric Zabelny for the unloading photos.

Car 56 was built by St. Louis in 1916 for Wisconsin Railway Light & Power, which was later combined with the city system in Winona, MN and rechristened Mississippi Valley Public Service. It's a pretty interesting car - it strongly resembles cars built by St. Louis for Evanston Railway and Johnstown Traction, but this series was fitted with unusual St. Louis 109A maximum traction trucks. It also had K-51 controllers, a type which doesn't appear anywhere else on my list. It's one of three surviving cars from MVPS, but the only double-truck car - the other two are a La Crosse Birney (which, ironically, was deaccessed by East Troy 20 years ago and I believe is in storage in its hometown) and a Winona single-trucker that was the subject of a major and recently completed restoration in Excelsior, MN.

It's nice to see this car saved for preservation. And it's the first time in a while that one of the larger, established, operating trolley museums has acquired an unrestored car body for preservation. The practice was pretty common in the 1980s and 1990s, with Seashore (the "last roundup") and IRM (the rather less dignified "body snatchers") leading the way, but by my count the last time one of the larger trolley museums acquired an unrestored car body that wasn't already preserved elsewhere was 2013, when Edmonton acquired a Regina single-trucker. A number of bodies have been acquired in the interim by smaller organizations, from Hoosier Heritage and Old Pueblo to a gaggle of local history groups, but the larger museums have largely abandoned the acquisition of car bodies.

South Shore trailer moves

No sooner does the South Shore Line Museum Project announce itself, than it expands its collection. Notice was posted online that South Shore 203, the last surviving coach trailer from that interurban line, left East Troy's site near Mukwonago, WI, today en route to the SSLMP. The photo above, by Joe Stupar, dates to 2010 and shows the car's current condition. This car, built by Pullman in 1927, was part of the National Park Service collection that was conveyed to East Troy back in 2010. It had been stored at a steel plant in East Chicago, IN, (and before then in Beech Grove, IN) along with three coaches and a combine - all from the South Shore - but when the NPS decided to finally give up on plans to create a heritage interurban railway, these cars went to East Troy, the only museum to regularly operate South Shore cars. The only restored car of the lot was backdated car 33, which has since entered service at East Troy. The others, including car 203, were in various states of "rough" and have been kept indoors but unserviceable.

Car 203 is the last South Shore trailer; this particular variety has fared particularly poorly in preservation. After the railroad was abandoned and the cars sold off, there were five or six 200-series trailers saved. But one by one they ended up scrapped, with car 205 the most recent to go, a victim of the IMOTAC dissolution debacle. Interurban coach trailers as a category are rare, and by my count car 203 is one of only five complete examples in existence. SSLMP may not have a place to display or operate the car yet, but it seems a given that this last surviving example of its type will have a secure spot in its new home.

A 4000 for East Troy

 

The news was posted on RyPN this week that Chicago Transit Authority 4439, a standard 4000-series Chicago 'L' cars, has been moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to the East Troy Electric Railroad. This move was mentioned on this blog a few months ago but it has now actually happened, so car 4439 has been updated with its new owner and location. The TLE&W still has a pair of ex-New York Central MU cars and an unidentified Lackawanna MU car on their roster but car 4439 was the last vestige of the Grand Rapids Electric Railway collection that had been amassed by Charley Sheets. From outward appearances the car looks to be largely complete and generally in excellent condition.

So that's one fewer owner of CTA 4000s as listed on the PNAERC roster. According to the list there are a total of 30 CTA 4000s still remaining, consisting of one "Baldy" trailer, three "Baldy" motor cars, and 26 "Plushies" (the latter category including cars like 4439). These are spread out among a total of 13 owners. Right now there are only two museums that are actually operating 4000s: East Troy and the Illinois Railway Museum. East Troy has both of their 4000s in service (4439 will give them a three-car train) while IRM has four of its six cars in operation including its "Baldy." The CTA itself, certainly not a museum, also has a pair of cars in its historic collection that see occasional use for PR purposes. A fourth organization, Fox River Trolley Museum, has a pair of 4000s undergoing heavy overhaul work, including a now-rare example of a car rebuilt with gasket-ized upper sash. It likely won't be too long before these cars are back in operation.

The remaining nine organizations are a mixed bag of museums and private owners. The Connecticut Trolley Museum owns more 4000s than anyone else except IRM, with four cars (including a "Baldy" motor car that the museum converted into a trailer), but none are in very good condition and two have been offered for sale. The Northern Ohio Railway Museum also owns three 4000s, including the last "Baldy" trailer, but its three cars are in relatively poor condition too and all have been deaccessed from the historic collection and/or offered for sale. There are two (now-rare) 4000-series work cars at the Middletown & Hummelstown, a lone car at Branford, and a lone car at the Ohio Railway Museum, all in fairly decrepit condition. The Michigan Transit Museum has a pair of 4000s, one of which is maintained in reasonably good condition and towed by a diesel as part of that organization's tourist train. And finally there are three (maybe two-and-a-half) cars in private collections: the remnants of one car at Buckeye Lake Trolley have been cut down to just the floor, one car in Indiana that is in limbo after having been rescued from the scrappers descending on the Indiana Transportation Museum in 2018, and one stored indoors in Escanaba, Michigan.

Milwaukee Street Railway 200 found

One of the stranger "missing streetcars" on the PNAERC list, outlined here, has been found. This one is strange because most of the cars I consider "missing" are only missing to me - people associated with the owners, or former owners, know what happened to those cars. In the case of Milwaukee Street Railway 200, though, it went missing and nobody - including its owner, East Troy Electric Railroad - knew what happened to it. Until now! ETER member Scott Patrick posted the above photo, and some others, on Facebook showing that the car has indeed turned up on the property of a man who had been somehow involved with an abortive restoration attempt about a decade ago. The car is in rough shape, essentially a skeleton sitting atop an unusual steel frame that was built c2010, but then again it wasn't much more complete when it left East Troy in 2009. It sounds like East Troy is going to move the body of car 200 back to their site and look into options for future restoration.

It's good that the car wasn't lost. As skeletal as it is, it's quite historic and may be the oldest electric car preserved in the Midwest. It was built in 1892, using an 1888 horsecar as a base, and was used as a street railway parlor car until a second rebuilding in 1907 which turned it into a hospital car (does this make it the only preserved electric railway hospital car in the country?). Then in 1919 its slow downgrading process continued and it became a tool car, finally leaving the roster in 1931.

Cars on the move

 

It appears that the East Troy Electric Railroad has purchased CTA 4439, shown above in a somewhat recent photo from the First & Fastest Facebook page, from its current owner, the Toledo Lake Erie & Western. This is one of the more elusive of the preserved 4000s and has been off public display for a couple of decades at least. I vaguely recall seeing it back about 20 years ago and, as the above photo suggests, it appears to be in good condition. After it left CTA in 1975, I believe it was briefly stored in Michigan City before going to the state of Michigan where it was stored by the Oakland County Parks & Recreation Commission. I have no idea why OCP&RC acquired this car nor what their plans were for it. I think (but am not sure) that they're the ones responsible for fixing it up and putting it in this green paint scheme. It later made its way to Charley Sheets' collection in Toledo, thence to Grand Rapids, OH, and into possession of the TLE&W as outlined here. I haven't changed the car's listing over to East Troy yet, as it hasn't yet physically made its way to Wisconsin, but that should just be a matter of time.

And in unrelated news, Gord McOuat has sent me the numbers of the latest two Toronto CLRV's to be acquired by Halton County. Car 4040 and car 4053 were acquired by Halton as parts sources, however the museum hasn't yet decided which two of their (now) six CLRV's will be scrapped for parts and which four will be retained. So it's quite likely that one or both of these cars may end up being retained for preservation. In any event, both cars have now been added to the PNAERC list, bringing the total number of preserved CLRV's up to 14.

Cars for sale

It's come to my attention that a couple of the cars on the list have been put up for sale, their fates likely dependent on whether anyone steps forward to purchase and preserve them.

The more historic of the two, by a long shot, is South Shore 203. This car is an interurban trailer built for the South Shore Pullman in 1927, one of ten trailers built as part of the line's second order for steel cars. It was later lengthened by the railroad. What makes this car historic is that it is the last South Shore coach trailer (identical car 205 is still on the PNAERC list but it is in very poor condition and is to be stripped for parts and scrapped). It's also a rare example of an all-steel interurban trailer, and I suspect the newest survivor of that type. Car 203 was among the cars stored for a number of years by the National Park Service, first at Beech Grove and later in East Chicago, before the NPS divested itself of its interurban car collection and donated the lot to East Troy in 2010. Of the five cars moved to East Troy that year, car 203 is the rarest, but according to an RyPN post to which I was alerted by Olin Anderson it is now up for sale. If it ends up being scrapped, it will be a shame for this series of car to go extinct at such a late date. As recently as 2000 there were no fewer than six of these cars still around, but two were cut up in the early 2000s and another pair at the Indiana Railway Museum were scrapped in the mid-2010s. The last two are 205, a victim of long-term benign neglect at ITM, and 203.

And then there's Philadelphia 2134, a typical PCC built for that city in 1948 by St. Louis Car Company. Back in 2003 it was purchased from SEPTA, rehabbed by Brookville, and plinthed along the now-abandoned Germantown streetcar line in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Mt Airy for use as an ice cream stand. The business closed about a month ago, though, and the streetcar is now up for sale. While I don't usually include cars used as diners (or houses, or sheds) on the PNAERC list, I do make some exceptions in cases where the car's identity as a streetcar is obviously being preserved and emphasized. If this car is scrapped it will not be a significant historic loss.

Missing streetcar

A post on our sister Hicks Car Works blog here reveals that a streetcar in the East Troy Electric Railroad collection, Milwaukee Electric 200, has gone missing. The car is pictured above in 2011, by which time it had been moved off-site to private property, but between then and now ETER has undergone one of its periodic "regime changes" and the owner of the property died. At some point during the last few years the car seems to have vanished. Whether it was demolished or is sitting in someone's barn somewhere is a good question that the folks at East Troy are looking to answer.

UPDATE: This mystery has been solved!

So its condition on PNAERC has been changed to "situation unknown." There are a lot of cars on the list with this tag - 32 total at the moment. And I'm always looking to solve some of these mysteries, so please take a look at the list if you've got a minute. Some of the cars on the list (like QRL&P 105 and TTC TP10) are undeniably intact, I'm just not sure what condition they're in. There are some that were, until recently at least, bodies in a state of precarious storage on private land (KCC&StJ 54, El Paso 90, San Antonio 205, and SCP 302 fall into this category). These cars have very likely been scrapped, and at some point I'll probably have to assume the worst and take them off the list (update here), but I'd love to know for certain. There are a handful of cars that were owned by apparently established organizations but seem to have disappeared (besides car 200, NOS&WB 50*, Muni 1111, and the St Pete line car  (update) are in this category). There are a couple of PCC cars that were trucked to destinations unknown (NJT 24* and Pittsburgh 1772*). And then there are a few cars that I'm pretty sure - but not 100% certain - were scrapped, like Tandy 6*, TTC 2822, and Lackawanna 4351* and 4359*. (*=since solved!)

As always, the PNAERC list is only as complete or as accurate as the information that I'm able to gather. YOU can help!

East Troy updates

I was able to visit the East Troy Electric Railroad this past weekend for the first time in some years (see the Hicks Car Works blog for a full report) and this visit resulted in some updates and corrections to the PNAERC roster. First, I was able to update the status of several cars, including South Shore cars like car 33 - acquired from the National Park Service in 2010 - which have been put into service. Additionally, I confirmed that South Shore car 21, which had been largely stripped for parts and was in use as a storeroom and office when I was last at East Troy some 15 years ago, was parted out and scrapped. The car was in poor condition when acquired by East Troy in the 1990s and its roof had further deteriorated, so it made sense given the presence of another ten South Shore cars also on the property (some 20% of the railroad's entire passenger fleet!).

And finally, I had the chance to inspect Twin Cities Rapid Transit car 1583 and update some of its mechanical info. Acquired back in the 1970s by the Wisconsin Trolley Museum (ancestor to ETER) as a body, the car is now confirmed to be fitted with Boston Blue Line trucks and motors. Its controllers are a mystery; though "Type 25LB" is cast into their tops, along with some wording in French that betrays their Belgian origin, I have no idea what company may have manufactured them. Help? The car also has an air compressor that resembles a GE CP-something-or-other but was actually manufactured by SEM, another Belgian company. So that pump is currently listed as simply an "SEM" though if I can figure out what CP-type pump it resembles that may change.