More List Cleanup

Not every time I take a car off the PNAERC list is it because the car was scrapped. Sometimes, it's because the car has disappeared entirely. Others, it's because something about its condition or prospects has changed so that it no longer qualifies as "preserved." That's the case today, and the reason I've taken a quartet of MBTA subway cars off the list.

MBTA 01469, 01470, 01477, and 01480 are Cambridge-Dorchester line cars built by Pullman-Standard in 1963. They're identical to 01450 and 01455, preserved at Seashore. But unlike that pair, the aforementioned quartet never left the "T." After retirement in 1994, they were put into work service for a time and then stored. In recent years, they've been kept in increasingly derelict condition at Codman Yard.

This is a photo of 01470 taken in 2023. I added these cars to the PNAERC list probably 20+ years ago, when they were in reasonably good shape (possibly still operational). But at this point, it's doubtful that they'll end up preserved. The "T" doesn't retain cars for its own historic fleet, other than the Mattapan PCCs, and Seashore has stopped collecting rapid transit cars; they recently turned down a pair of 1970s Orange Line cars set aside for them, with the result that the type is now extinct. As such, I've removed the four Codman Yard 01400s from the PNAERC list. That leaves the MBTA with a total of 11 cars on the PNAERC list (nine Mattapan PCCs and two cars on display at Boylston) and a grand total of 2,090 cars on the list.

Boston PCC Overhaul Progress

Since we've had a "PCC overhaul program progress report" from Philadelphia, why not one from Boston, too?

Indeed, the T is also going through their PCC fleet and rebuilding it a handful of cars at a time, though there are some differences. First, these cars weren't modernized to quite the extend the Philadelphia cars were - they still retain their original running gear, including air-electric brakes. They did receive air-conditioning and sealed windows, though. Anyway, the overhaul program started with cars 3265 and 3234 in 2019. It was suspended for a time, but 3265 returned to service in April of this year, and car 3234 has now joined it back home in Mattapan.

The next two cars to get rebuilt are, apparently, 3238 and 3260. The former is just one of the members of the Mattapan fleet (it's on the left in the photo above, by Cam Moore via Facebook), but the latter car is a bit of a special case. Car 3260 was involved in a fairly serious collision back in December 2017, when it was rear-ended by 3262. Both cars have been out of service since. And while it's good that 3260 is being rebuilt, it appears that car 3262 - which had its front end badly stove in - has now had its rear end cut off aft of the bolster. This section will be grafted onto car 3260. I'm not certain whether the T has already cut up the rest of 3262, or whether the incomplete shell will hang around as a parts source, but in either case I don't think it qualifies for the PNAERC list anymore. So it's been removed. The Mattapan PCC fleet, formerly at 10 cars, now numbers nine.

Horsepower

Over the weekend I was briefly loaned a book that was issued by the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum back in the 1970s, when it was the Arden Trolley Museum. It was a reprint of a 1925 Westinghouse motor catalog, and listed most - if not all - of the motors Westinghouse had built for street railway use up to that time. Motor number, horsepower, voltage, RPM, and other information was included, along with notes. This has allowed me to add horsepower ratings to a lot of the equipment on the PNAERC list (fun fact: 757 cars on the PNAERC list have, or ought to have, Westinghouse motors, according to my admittedly incomplete listings). The "total horsepower" field may not be all that tremendously fascinating, but it can be useful information. So, does anyone have a similar catalog of GE motors? Or a later Westinghouse catalog that would include post-1925 types?

And in completely unrelated news, the above photo was posted today on the PCC Trolley Club Facebook page by Michael McKinnon. It shows MBTA 3265, which is the first of the Mattapan-Ashmont cars to go through the latest generation of overhaul, and has now shown back up on its old stomping grounds, presumably for burn-in testing. It looks like this rebuild was largely in-kind, and happily the car has kept its attractive orange/cream/silver BER/MTA era livery. This car went to Everett Shops for rebuild back in 2019 along with car 3234, which is still being worked on. I've read that car 3260, which was damaged in a wreck in 2017, may be next in line for work.

LRV's removed from list

A little over a year ago, in January 2020 back "before this all started" as they say, I put up this post about the MBTA listing its three Boeing-Vertol LRV's for sale. Well, it occurred to me that I had never followed up to see what happened with those cars.

I had guessed that they were most likely scrapped, and a check of the Boston Transit Museum MBTA roster page reveals that to be true. It says that all three cars were cut up a year ago, back in March 2020, but given the unusual amount of news happening that month I guess this didn't quite make the headlines. 

There are photos of all three cars at the January 2020 post linked above, but suffice to say that all three - MBTA 3417, 3448, and 3453 (all original numbers) - were built by Boeing-Vertol in 1976 for the T. Cars 3417 and 3453 were rebuilt in the mid-1990s as a re-railing car and a general work car, respectively, while 3448 became a "track geometry car" in 2005 after it had been painted in Boston Elevated Railway colors. All had been out of service for years by 2020, though, and from the photos in the MBTA sale listing they were obviously in very rough shape.

So these three have now been removed from the list. That leaves only one preserved Boeing-Vertol LRV from Boston, car 3424 preserved inoperable at Seashore, plus three San Francisco examples, two in museums (both, against all odds, currently operational) and one in private ownership in dubious condition.

LRVs for sale, get your LRVs right here

This link just came to my attention noting that the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is selling a group of junk light rail cars. Among the group are the last three Boeing-Vertol LRVs left on MBTA property. All three are listed on PNAERC because for quite some time I've made a practice of including pieces of equipment that were of obviously historic nature, even if that equipment was still in work service. In many cases this just means that equipment is on PNAERC for some time before it makes its way to a museum, but in this case the cars may just end up being taken off the list due to scrapping before they ever make it into formal preservation.

The three LRVs, all built by Boeing-Vertol in 1976, consist of three cars converted for various types of work service during the 1990s when the LRVs as a class were being retired from passenger service. Two of them, car 3453 pictured at the top and car 3417 pictured above, are significant (to a point) in that they're the last Boeing LRVs in existence with their original plug doors. These doors were notorious for their complexity and unreliability and many of the T's LRVs - as well as all of San Francisco's LRVs - were rebuilt with far simpler folding doors. The only formally preserved Boston LRV, car 3424 at Seashore, was rehabbed with folding doors. My notes suggest that at one point Seashore was considering acquiring one of these cars to represent the type's original configuration but I do not believe that is still the case, considering the internal alterations that were made when these cars were converted to work service and their current poor condition.

And the third car is car 3448, which at some point in the 1990s (I think) was painted in traditional Boston Elevated Railway orange and cream. While the photos on the auction site suggest this car appears to be in slightly better condition than the other two, it still looks awfully rough.

Though it's possible someone may want one of them, it seems unlikely and I would surmise that before too long these three LRVs will be gone. That will make car 3424 the only remaining Boston LRV and reduce the total number of Boeing LRVs in existence to four, with only three of those in museums.

PCC collision in Boston

Well this isn't good. Two of the air-electric PCC cars on the Mattapan-Ashmont line in Boston were damaged in a rear-end collision; photos appear to show that 3260 was the front car (the one run into) while 3262 was definitely the rear car and had its entire front end stove in. Thankfully nobody was killed however there were a number of injuries. I'm hoping that everyone affected recovers quickly. Both cars involved have been marked on the PNAERC roster as out of service. The photo above, of 3262 in happier days, was taken during a visit of mine in March 2016.