Trenton Sweeper Moves

Thanks to Bill Wall and Wesley Paulson for sending me updates of recent news on the last surviving piece of equipment from the Trenton & Mercer County, New Jersey Transit 5246, a snow sweeper built by Russell in 1921.

Today, the sweeper was moved from its recent storage location at the Bloomfield NJT light rail shops to Titusville, NJ (above photo by Bill Wall). There, its new owner, Liberty Historic Railway, has an indoor storage location arranged for it (I'm not clear on why the sweeper has been boat-wrapped - I guess extra insurance?). This piece of equipment has had quite the tumultuous couple of decades. I'm not sure when it was last used by NJT, or when it last ran, but in 2011 it was moved from the Newark subway system to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum for storage. It remained there until 2020, when it went back to NJT and was stored outside at the Bloomfield facility. As far as I know, it's been owned by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society during this period, but it is now owned by LHR. As the last surviving T&MC piece of equipment, it's quite historically significant.

Its condition is, shall we say, unusual. That's because it's really "a tale of two sweepers" in a single car body. The photos above and below were posted a week ago by NJERHS. The first two photos show one end of 5246, looking like it's almost ready to "put the pole up and go," as they say...

...and then there's the other end of the sweeper, where the roof has failed and partially caved in, among other structural issues. We've all seen cars where a leak in one spot caused localized deterioration, but I don't think I've ever seen quite such a night-and-day difference between two ends of the same car as here. I assume that half of it was tarped and half wasn't, or maybe one end was under a downspout off a building or something. Anyway, LHR has their work cut out for them. That group is back up to two cars on the PNAERC list, while NJT itself is down to one car, PSCT 28 - but I'm actually not certain who owns that car, and it's not on NJT property, it's a "gate guardian" at the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway.

Newark PCC plinthed

Thanks to John Igoe of the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society for sending along the above photo of Public Service Coordinated Transport 28, credited to Trolley Lines #30, Tony Hall. This photo shows the car in its new home, plinthed next to the main gate of the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway, New Jersey. Previously I had reported that the car had been repainted by Kinki-Sharyo and it appears that this is why: so that it can be displayed out in front of the plant. Of course I'm a bit behind the times on this, and John reports that car 28 has been out by the plant entrance since the end of 2019 (it's even visible on Google aerial photos), but better late than never. And thanks also to Bill Wall, who confirms that car 28 is definitely owned by New Jersey Transit and is simply on display in Piscataway.

John also sent along some other updates on the NJERHS collection. Most I was aware of from the update I received late last year, but it was confirmed that most of the organization's collection was shrink-wrapped and placed in storage outside the southwest corner of the Kinki-Sharyo plant. Car 2651 is still indoors, where I believe it was being worked on until the pandemic struck and will presumably be worked on again once things sufficiently reopen, while Newark PCC 13 is in storage at the URHS yard in Boonton and itself was recently shrink-wrapped.

Piscataway update - corrected

I'd like to extend my thanks to Marc Lipkin of the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society for sending along a series of corrections, updates, and photos pertaining to the NJERHS collection of traction equipment from the Garden State. I also want to thank Bill Wall of Branford for submitting some notable corrections to the initial post.

First off, Marc pointed out that some corrections and updates were needed. The PNAERC roster formerly listed Public Service Coordinated Transport ownership of several pieces of equipment going back to the 1910s, when in fact PSCT wasn't formed until 1928. Before then, rail operations were under the auspices of Public Service Railway. So that error has now been fixed. There was another mistake too, though, as I listed all of the Newark Subway equipment going straight from PSCT ownership to New Jersey Transit ownership in 1971. In fact, Marc pointed out that NJT wasn't formed until 1979 and didn't assume ownership of the subway operation until 1980. From 1971 until 1980 the subway was run by Transport of New Jersey, the privately-owned successor company to PSCT. (Matt Nawn has since written in to confirm the 1971-1980 tenure of TNJ as the operator of the subway.) So that's now fixed too.

Then we get into the more "update" type stuff. Marc informed me that a total of eight cars are owned by NJERHS (and not by United Railway Historical Society, an umbrella group that has a hand in coordination but does not hold title to any of these cars). Of these, six are stored in what is now the NJERHS "home base" at the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway, New Jersey. A seventh, the hulk of snow sweeper 5173, is stored at the old NJERHS site in Phillipsburg, while the eighth, snow sweeper 5246, is now back on home rails on the Newark subway (and is listed under New Jersey Transit, albeit with a notation that it is owned by NJERHS). Of the cars stored in Piscataway, as of last year four were stored inside with two (13 and 250) outside protected by shrink wrap, but due to a recent uptick in Kinki-Sharyo's business three more cars have since been shrink-wrapped and put outside. But Marc kindly sent along photos showing the current condition of the four cars inside at the end of 2019.

PSCT 2651

The pride of the NJERHS fleet is probably PSCT 2651, an archetypal Public Service car built in the company shops in 1917. It is the one car that has been kept indoors in Piscataway and has not been shrink-wrapped.

This car has been the subject of a long, intensive restoration effort, and Marc updated me on its progress. I still had the car listed as a body on trucks but that assessment is far out of date - in fact, it's been moved a short distance under its own power! The car is indeed now fitted with trucks motors, controllers, and it has its interior and roof back.

Marc sent a couple of interior photos taken last year around this time to go with the exterior shots. The car's interior can be seen to be largely complete. It's certainly an austere design, what with the wood slat bowling-alley seating. Pretty much the entire roof was removed and rebuilt as part of the restoration.

For comparison, Marc took these photos in the barn in Phillipsburg back in 2007. At the time car 2651 was on freight car shop trucks and it was missing much of its roof and many of its windows.d

New Jersey Transit 5221

NJT 5221 is a line car and general work car from the Newark subway system. It was built by Russell in 1912 for Public Service Railway. It is complete and in largely the same condition as when it left regular use on the subway.

New Jersey Transit 5223

The most distinctive of the Newark non-revenue fleet is surely NJT 5223, a general utility car that (as you may have surmised) was rebuilt from a streetcar. It started out as PSCT 2683, a 1917 home-built car virtually - or maybe completely - identical to 2651 before most of its body was lopped off in 1953 and it was given its current work car number. The third photo shows 5223 from inside its erstwhile sister car 2651, looking down its deck towards its "cab" at the far end.

PSCT 28

Many thanks to Bill Wall for a couple of corrections on this item! The car pictured in these Marc Lipkin photos is not Newark car 1, as I had supposed, but is actually car 28, which is not owned by NJERHS but rather is still owned by New Jersey Transit. This car was built for Minneapolis in 1949 as TCRT 417 and has been kept on "home rails" in Newark as an historic artifact. Kinki-Sharyo repainted the car as a training exercise.

Bill points out that while the grey is slightly off, it's pretty close, and the visor is not incorrect for this livery. Newark started putting these visors on their cars in 1970 when they still ran for PSCT and it wasn't until the mid-1970s that they started getting painted red/white/blue. This means that, while car 28 isn't the only Newark car preserved in these colors, it's the only one preserved in this late variation of the grey livery with the visor.

Many thanks to Bill, Marc, and NJERHS for sending along all of this information. I always appreciate corrections, like the PSRy>PSNJT>TofNJ>NJT details, and of course I'm very appreciative of status updates on cars like the ones in Piscataway about which not a lot tends to appear online. Thanks, Bill and Marc!

The second sweeper

Thanks to Bill Wall, who pointed out this post from the SubChat message board. It appears - improbably - that this week two snow sweepers left the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. Following the relocation of C127 to Scranton, the other sweeper that was being stored by BSM for someone else left Baltimore too. This second sweeper was New Jersey Transit 5246, a handsome double-truck Russell-built example built in 1921.

Car 5246 has quite a history: it was built new for the Trenton & Mercer County, making it the only survivor from that line* and a very rare survivor from the network of small New Jersey suburban lines. In 1934, following the abandonment of streetcars in Trenton, the sweeper went to the Third Avenue Railway System in New York. It only ran there 14 years before being resold again to Toronto, which operated it until 1973. At that time it was brought back to its home state of New Jersey by New Jersey Transit, the purpose being to replace NJT 5173 as the Newark Subway's snow sweeper after that car burned to its frame in 1972. (The frame of 5173, though, is still intact and the car - such as it is - is considered to be on the roster of the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society, or NJERHS.) Sweeper 5246 was stored - and occasionally used, I guess - on the Newark Subway system until it was transferred to the Friends of New Jersey Transportation Heritage Center (FNJTHC) in 2011. Without anywhere to put it, that group sent it to Baltimore for storage.

Car 5246 is still evidently owned by FNJTHC and supposedly the original plan was to move it from Baltimore to the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway, where other cars owned by them and NJERHS are stored. But there was said to be no room in the inn, so 5246 has now ended up back home on the Newark system for interim storage. It's now one of two cars listed under NJ Transit, joining a lone PCC that was kept as an historic relic but has not, as far as I know, seen use. And BSM, for its part, now no longer has anyone else's equipment on its property.

*Sweeper 5246 is the only car listed on the PNAERC list as ex-Trenton & Mercer County, however I'm not certain that's strictly correct. The only information I can find on T&MC's corporate history is here and it implies that T&MC was basically an operating company, with equipment owned by various subsidiaries. If that's true then Trenton Street Railway 288 would also be ex-T&MC... but to be consistent I'd likely need to change the ownership history of either 288 or 5246. Anyone know the story?