Holiday in Rockwood

Many thanks to Jordan Helzer, who alerted me to this blog post from last week, and to Gord McOuat of the Halton County Radial Railway, who filled me in on the details. Long story short, Hillcrest Shop in Toronto is going to be renovated, so the TTC is short of space. During the five years this work is expected to take, the historic fleet of six cars will be taking a vacation to HCRR out in Rockwood.

The first two cars to move out to HCRR were Peter Witt 2766, shown above in a photo dating to 2020, and PCC 4500. These were soon followed, between last week and this week, by PCC 4549, CLRV 4081, and CLRV 4001, which was due to be moved out to Rockwood earlier today. That leaves only ALRV 4207, which requires specialized trucking arrangements and is due to move in a couple of weeks.

I'm not certain whether the cars will see any revenue service during their time in Rockwood; they may at least get operated occasionally to keep them exercised. All are said to be operational except for 4081 and perhaps 4207, though even those are complete and in good shape. The long-term plan for the historic fleet is a bit uncertain because the TTC is no longer set up for trolley pole operation, only pantograph operation. The stated goal is to mount pantographs on these cars, or at least on some of them, once they return to Toronto.

In the meantime, I've updated their status to list HCRR as their location along with a notation that they're on loan from the TTC (the exception being 4207, since for the moment it's still in Toronto). For its part, HCRR is up to 59 cars on the PNAERC roster (including 10 CLRVs!), but that's a bit misleading; besides the five TTC cars now on the property, there are also two CLRVs being held for the American Industrial Mining Company Museum and a third that was owned by Seashore until it was given to HCRR a year ago.

Finally, on a totally different subject, this article showed up online about a streetcar body in a closed Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The car body is not on the PNAERC list (at least not yet!) because until very recently, I didn't have any information on it. It now appears that the car is a Dallas Railway & Terminal 111-115 series double-truck Birney, originally built for Texas Interurban Railway (their 100-104 series) by American in 1922. It arrived at the restaurant in Columbus in 1977. The car is due to be demolished within days or weeks if a buyer can't be found, so I'm holding off on adding it to PNAERC until it's apparent whether the car is really "preserved."

More Miscellany - Relocation, Removal, Disappearances

Today's entry is something of a catch-all of recent updates. First, thanks to Bill Wall for sending the above photo showing Public Service Coordinated Transport 5173. This is what remains of a four-wheel snow sweeper from the Newark subway; it burned in a fire in the subway in 1972 but its frame has been owned by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society since 1980. It's been stored in Phillipsburg for years, but was just relocated to join the rest of the NJERHS collection in Piscataway. I'm looking for information on this thing, especially who built it and when - anyone have a good PSCT roster handy?

Next up, we have a removal: Scarborough Rapid Transit 3027, a linear-induction-motor car shown above, has been dismantled by the Halton County Radial Railway. HCRR acquired two of these cars, 3027 and sister car 3026, with the idea of dismantling one, so this is not unexpected. The Halton County roster currently stands at 54 cars on PNAERC, while the overall list has 2,088 cars.

Finally, I tell you a mystery: two Texas Electric freight trailers have disappeared from the grounds of the Texas State Railroad in Rusk, Texas. The two are TE 605, built by St. Louis in 1907 as Texas Traction coach 6, rebuilt as a freight motor in 1914, and rebuilt as freight trailer 605 in 1918; and TE 613 (shown above), built in 1907 as Texas Traction coach 7, rebuilt c1914 as an RPO-coach, and then rebuilt in 1925 as a freight trailer. For years, both cars sat on the ground at the east/southeast end of the TSRR yard in Rusk. But at some point, they disappeared, both from Street View and (as near as I can tell) from aerial photos. Does anyone know for sure what happened to them? I believe they were just used for storage, so my best guess is that they were dismantled, but I'd love to know for sure. I've changed the status of each car to "unknown" pending word one way or another. (The third body owned by TSRR, ex-C&LE box motor 646, is still visible on Google Street View as recently as a year and a half ago.)

One Removal and a Couple of Questions

Thanks to Gord McOuat for confirming that the Halton County Radial Railway has dismantled Toronto CLRV 4010 as a parts source.

Car 4010 was the first CLRV to go to a museum, back on November 4, 2019, and operated at HCRY as soon as it arrived. But the museum has since acquired several other examples of the type, with the idea that the one or two cars in the worst condition would be dismantled as parts sources, and that ended up including 4010. This brings the number of CRLVs currently at Halton County down to "only" eight, though a couple of those are owned by other museums and just stored in Rockwood for the moment.

Supposedly, Halton County has also dismantled one of its two Scarborough Rapid Transit cars (the ones acquired just a few weeks ago) - but I'm not sure which one. Anyone know?

And in unrelated news, Joshua Sutherland has sent me an update on Hanna Mining 306, a large industrial steeplecab built by GE in 1928. This locomotive has been on display, albeit in somewhat neglected condition, at Hill Annex Mine State Park in Minnesota. As it turns out, that state park was permanently closed this summer to allow mining and extraction work to resume. It sounds like the old equipment and buildings may simply get demolished to make way for resumption of business (or maybe they're already gone) but I don't know for sure.

If Hanna Mining 306 gets cut up, it would not be a huge loss. Three other identical locomotives from this operation have been preserved, including one preserved indoors in impeccable condition in Duluth and two more displayed outdoors in decent condition elsewhere in the region. For the time being, locomotive 306's status has been changed to "unknown." Any updates on what happens to the artifacts at this site are appreciated.

Linear Induction Motor Cars Preserved

A post on the Transit Toronto Facebook page here has revealed that two cars from Toronto's Scarborough RT rapid transit line, which closed in 2023, have found their way to the Halton County Radial Railway. The cars are TTC 3026 and TTC 3027, a married-pair set of "people mover"-type automated cars built in 1986 by UTDC. Not only were these cars built for automated, or driverless, operation, but they were built to use linear induction motors. As such, they don't have normal traction motors geared to the axles, but they still have electric motors that move them along the track. There's one other car of this general type (actually, a nearly identical car built by UTDC in 1982 for Vancouver) on the PNAERC list, described here when I added it to the list a year or so ago.

As for cars 3026 and 3027, they're standard gauge, which means they can't roll on Halton County's track. For the moment, they're stored on panel track in the maintenance building. Supposedly, one will be preserved and the other will be disposed of, though I'm not sure which. With these two cars added, Halton County's up to 56 cars listed on PNAERC, while the entire list stands at 2,089 cars.

I was able to find more information about these cars (albeit from Wikipedia) than I was on the Vancouver car that's on the list, but I could still use more information. Technical details are always appreciated.

Several Mysteries Solved

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson and the others who have sent information on the "situation unknown" cars in the list I posted a couple of days ago. I've been able to answer a few of these questions with the information submitted.

First, it's confirmed that Newport & Providence 9, the body of a double-truck open car built by Laconia in 1904, was demolished by the Seashore Trolley Museum in November 2023. The body - what there was of it - was already in a state of partial collapse, so this was pretty much inevitable. The car has been removed from the list. The above view from here dates to 2019; the below image is a still from a video of the car being dismantled. Thanks to Jack D for confirmation of this.

The second car removed from the PNAERC list is TTC subway cab-on-flat work car RT28, shown below in a photo from 2007 from here. This car and identical car RT29 were preserved at Halton County, which still has RT29 in its collection to represent the type. Thanks to Gord McOuat for confirming that RT28 was scrapped, something like a decade ago as it turns out.

Gord also sent confirm that all three Canadian Railway Museum/Exporail cars - Montreal Tramways 1953, Quebec Railway Light & Power 105, and Toronto TP10 - are very much in existence and are stored indoors in an off-limits building at CRM. Gord even sent a sheet of technical information on TP10 that allowed me to flesh out its entry.

A Second CLRV Heads South

The Facebook page of the Seashore Trolley Museum confirms that the CLRV they purchased back in 2020, Toronto Transit Commission 4068, is en route from its three-year storage location at Halton County to Kennebunkport. The car is shown above being winched onto a flatbed truck earlier this week. Seashore has constructed a car-length piece of Toronto-gauge panel track in their bus display area on which to put this car. Car 4068 is the second CLRV to be preserved south of the border, joining car 4034, which moved to the Illinois Railway Museum in 2019 and has likewise been stored on a piece of Toronto-gauge panel track since.

I'm not certain what the long-term plan for car 4068 is. When it was acquired three years ago, a second car, 4133, was also moved to Halton County with the aim of scrapping it for parts for 4068. As far as I know, 4133 is still at Halton County, but I'm not certain whether Seashore still plans to strip it for parts or whether they've decided to make 4068 a permanently static display piece.

As an aside, of the 14 total CLRVs preserved, two more are stored at Halton County on behalf of their owner, the American Industrial Mining Museum aka Buckeye Lake Trolley, until they can be moved south to the States; two have been retained by the TTC; and one is in private ownership in Ontario. That leaves no fewer than six of the cars that have been acquired by Halton County.

Boxcab Returns to Canada

The photo above was posted today on the Connecticut Trolley Museum's Facebook page and shows Canadian National 6714 being craned onto a flatbed truck for the trip back home north of the border. CN 6714 is a mainline electric boxcab built in 1917 by GE for the suburban electrification out of Montreal. Along with the rest of its class, plus some English Electric-built boxcabs built slightly later, it remained in service a a remarkable 78 years and wasn't retired until 1995. This is one of four identical examples preserved, and until now has been the only one in the United States.

CN 6714 never really fit in at CTM, though, as it dwarfed most of their other equipment and its 2,400V DC design meant it couldn't operate. It was deaccessed in 2018 and, as mentioned here last year, ended up being acquired by the Halton County Radial Railway, near its place of construction in Toronto. It's now en route to Ontario, so I've changed its PNAERC record to reflect its new place of residence.

That means that CTM has disposed of all but one of the six cars it deaccessed in 2018. Three have been scrapped and two sold. To my knowledge, only LIRR 4153 remains in East Windsor. The size of the museum's traction collection, at least as far as PNAERC is concerned, now stands at 47 cars.

Northeastern Updates

There are a few updates to the PNAERC data out of museums (and non-museums) in the northeast. First, NYCTA 9075, an R-33ML subway car from New York, was moved over the weekend from its home of 17 years on a plinth in front of Queens Borough Hall. Many thanks to Bill Wall for the striking photo above. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where the car has gone, though online rumors suggest somewhere in New Jersey (which doesn't narrow it down much!). At the time the car was sold, it was said to have been purchased by an art dealer, so make of that what you will. Any updates are appreciated!

Second, there's another update to the ongoing saga of the deaccessed Warehouse Point cars. Halton County Radial Railway has come to an agreement to acquire Canadian National 6714, a boxcab locomotive from the Montreal suburban electrification. The locomotive was built in Toronto (it was news to me that this series of six locomotives were built in three different locations!) so has some local significance in addition to its technological significance. That means that, of the six cars deaccessed by CTM, three have been scrapped and two sold with just one still available: LIRR 4153. Any takers?

And finally, Branford's restoration shop has posted on its Facebook page that the wheel sets and motors have been pulled from underneath their diminutive four-wheel GE locomotive "Amy." Surely one of the more obscure pieces of equipment at the museum, this 1902 industrial boxcab gains a bit of prominence on the PNAERC list because the top line in the alphabetical "Now or Formerly Owned By" search box on the homepage is always Abendroth Foundry, the locomotive's owner. It's been out of service for years but that looks like it will be changing in the near future. The locomotive's condition has been changed to "undergoing restoration."

Toronto PCC to return home

TTC 4601 in 2000

Many thanks to Wesley Paulson for sending me this post on Facebook (no login required) courtesy of the Michigan Transit Museum. For about 11 years now, MTM has stored the two PCC cars in its possession - Detroit 268, acquired via a stint in Mexico City, and Toronto 4601 - on private property near Port Huron, Michigan. The Toronto car, which has no local significance and was never regauged from Toronto wide gauge, was deaccessed back in 2015 and it seems the car has finally found a taker. Halton County, which is already home to three 4600-series rebuilt PCC cars, is planning on moving car 4601 back north of the border sometime soon. The MTM announcement states that the intention is to restore the car. This is the latest example of an organization taking the positive step of deaccessing an unneeded piece of equipment that is using resources better applied elsewhere.

The TTC 4600s are an interesting subspecies of PCC. They were heavily overhauled by the TTC between 1986 and 1992, using class A-8 cars built by St. Louis for TTC in 1951 as the starting points. They were largely rebuilt in-kind, at least mechanically, and were painted in traditional colors for use on the Harbourfront Line. As such, when they were retired only a few years later in 1996, they were in excellent condition body-wise and were viewed as prime candidates for preservation. All 19 of the cars rebuilt for the 4600 program survive today, including two kept by TTC as heritage cars and six in regular heritage line service in Kenosha, WI. The remaining 11 cars ended up at museums: three at Halton County, one at MTM (soon to go to Halton County), two each at McKinney Avenue and National Capital, two at non-operating museums in Arizona, and one in Edmonton.

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.

Yet more CLRV's

It's time yet again to add more CLRV's to the PNAERC list. We are now up to a total of 12 CLRV's and two articulated ALRV's on the list and that's not the end of it. There are at least two more of the former type that have been acquired by Halton County (they plan on scrapping two of their six for parts but it will take time to decide which two) and there are rumors that two or three additional cars were sold in a recent auction to buyers unknown. So let's get to it.

The first contender is car 4001, one of the original 1977 prototype cars built by SIG in Switzerland. This article from December was brought to my attention pointing out that the car is being preserved by TTC itself as part of the system's historic fleet. Also being preserved by TTC is car 4089, a standard production car dating to 1979 (or maybe 1980 - delivery took place over a couple of years) and built in Canada by Hawker-Siddeley. Both cars have now been added to the PNAERC list.

Then there's a pair of cars that have been acquired by the American Industrial Mining Company Museum, car 4024 and car 4170. What does the CLRV have to do with American mining? Glad you asked! Not a thing, as far as I can tell. However AIMCM seems to be very closely intertwined with Buckeye Lake Trolley, so it seems likely that these cars are intended to fit in more with the BLT collection than with the collection of mining equipment currently shown on the AIMCM website. Right now both cars are being stored at Halton County pending movement to the states, and I've made a notation that they're owned by BLT / AIMCM.

Speaking of Halton, in addition to the two AIMCM cars they're currently hosting, and in addition to the two cars they're currently hosting that are owned by Seashore, and in addition to the two mystery cars mentioned above potentially acquired as parts sources, they've also gotten a fourth CLRV for their historic collection. It's the car pictured (while still in service last year) at the top of this post: car 4178, which in September 2019 was hand-painted in a very colorful livery by local Toronto artists. TTC asked Halton if they would be interested in preserving this admittedly unique piece and they gamely agreed, so the car is now in Rockwood and also on the PNAERC list. Thanks to Gord McOuat for passing along this update.

And finally - for the CLRV category at least - comes this article about a young man who has purchased car 4187 and is moving it to his family's farm in rural Priceville, north/northwest of Toronto. Though I usually don't list cars like this until they've physically been moved, it sounded like this was a fait accompli and with private collections like this it's not terribly likely that updates will be communicated to the preservation community at large. EDIT: I was wrong - the update is here.

But wait, there's an encore. It appears that a second ALRV - the two-car articulated version of the CLRV - has indeed been preserved by TTC, joining CLRV's 4001 and 4089 in the system's historic collection. I believe that it is car 4207, built in 1988 and withdrawn from service in mid-2019. What with the pandemic scrambling things, neither the ALRV nor the TTC's preserved CLRV's seem to have made any public appearances, but at some point they will presumably emerge to join the system's Peter Witt and its two PCC cars in excursion service.

Yet another CLRV and more

I'm a little late with this update, but last month Richard Schauer sent me a photo of yet another TTC that has made it to a museum. Car 4133, shown above, is currently stored at the Halton County Radial Railway but - like car 4068 - it is owned by the Seashore Trolley Museum. Unlike car 4068, though, this one isn't slated for long-term preservation. Instead the plan is to scrap it for parts, chiefly its trucks, which will be regauged to standard gauge and placed underneath car 4068. That's the plan but until that happens the car is still owned by a museum so it's on the PNAERC list for now.

Thanks also go to Al Weber with the National Museum of Transportation, who sent along several helpful pieces of mechanical information about cars in their collection. Tidbits like the type of controller on work car 165, air compressors on SLPS 1005 and IT 1575, and the brake schedule on the bi-polar are now part of the roster. Information like this is always greatly appreciated. I'm always looking to add any missing information, especially technical information on mechanical and electrical equipment. If you notice that cars at your museum have blank spaces in their listings, YOU can help! Just email me any information you are able to find.

Fifth CLRV preserved

The Seashore Trolley Museum has announced that it has acquired a CLRV from Toronto. TTC 4068 is a standard production car and the fifth CLRV preserved thus far. It is pictured above in a photo by Tom Twigge from the Seashore Facebook page.

The car is not in Kennebunkport, however. It has been moved to the Halton County Radial Railway - where three of the other four preserved CLRVs are located - for interim storage. The timeline is not set, but Seashore plans to regauge their car to standard in similar fashion to the Illinois Railway Museum with its CLRV. For the time being, in keeping with PNAERC practice and to make it easier to track, car 4068 is listed with Halton County's collection with a notation that it is owned by Seashore. The CLRV is the first piece of electric equipment acquired by Seashore since CTA 1 in 2016.

CLRVs preserved

There have been some changes at Halton County! In the Tom Twigg photo above, from the Halton Facebook question, can be seen a lineup of cars from the post-PCC era that are now museum pieces. To the right is the ALRV set that arrived a couple of weeks ago, TTC 4204, while on the three tracks to the left are three single-unit CLRV cars that arrived between November 4th and today: cars 4003, 4010, and 4039. All three are new additions to the PNAERC list.

Car 4003 is the eldest, one of six prototypes built in 1977 by Swiss company SIG (Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, but you knew that). The other two were part of the 190-car production order, with 4010 being the first production car in a series that included fleet numbers 4010-4199. They were constructed in Canada by Hawker-Siddeley in 1979. The CLRVs are truly streetcars - certainly streamlined and modern-looking, but undoubtedly streetcars. They even echo the PCC in their general layout and door arrangement. Other than their styling their most unusual feature may be their mono-motor trucks, which gives them a B-B wheel arrangement but only two motors per car (the later ALRVs returned to the more traditional one motor per axle design).

Halton County suddenly has quite the fleet, though it's fitting given that these cars represented the Toronto surface system for a few decades. Rumor has it that a couple more CLRVs are in line to be preserved by TTC itself and/or other museums, so stay tuned.

Toronto ALRV preserved

As shown above in a photo from the Halton County Radial Railway Facebook page (no log-in required), the museum has acquired an ALRV - or Articulated Light Rail Vehicle - from Toronto. The car, TTC 4204, arrived yesterday at the museum and has supposedly already been powered up and operated at the museum. Of course, it's the latest addition to the PNAERC list.

This ALRV was built in 1988, which makes it the second-newest piece of equipment on the list, and is a two-car articulated car of a general design common to light rail vehicles. It is the first car on the list built by UTDC and the first - though surely not the last - Toronto surface car from the post-PCC era to be put on the list. The ALRVs were a development of the CLRV (Canadian Light Rail Vehicle) design dating to the late 1970s but their retirement has predated just slightly that of their elder, single-unit brethren. Rumor has it that an ALRV may also be preserved by TTC itself and it seems certain that Halton will acquire at least one CLRV once they're all out of service. I should mention that I was able to find some truck and motor information about these cars but I'm still in need of control, brake, and air compressor information.

One conundrum is how exactly I should classify this car. On the one hand, it seems clear to me that the CLRV - despite its name - is a streetcar. The ALRV articulated design is more typical of light rail vehicles, which heretofore I've classified as "rapid transit cars" rather than streetcars, but it's basically a two-car CLRV and it spent its service life amidst the traffic on Toronto's streets. I'd say it's closest to a Cleveland 5000, of which regrettably none were preserved. As such I've classified 4204 as a streetcar - the only articulated streetcar on the PNAERC list.

Halton County updates

A week and a half ago was Winterfest, the annual gathering of (mainly east coast) trolley museum volunteers, and this time it was at Halton County. Blog posts from the Weakly Reports (PTM) and Hicks Car Works (IRM) blogs both reveal that TTC snow plow TP-11, until now listed as "under restoration," is indeed very much in service following its time in the Halton workshop.

There are a couple of other updates. CTA 48 is out of service due to motor issues but is on prominent public display. TTC subway cars 5098 and 5099 are likewise not operating currently but are on display and open for visitors. The PNAERC list has been updated accordingly.