First Portland LRV Preserved

Thanks to Jacob Wiczkowski for forwarding along this link announcing that TriMet (MAX) 101, the first light rail vehicle built for the Portland light rail system, has been moved to the Oregon Electric Railway Museum for preservation. The image above is a screen grab from the video posted on the museum's Facebook page.

Car 101 was built by Bombardier in 1983, making it the first Bombardier-built LRV in preservation. It underwent some testing in Pueblo, Colorado, in late 1983 before delivery to Portland the following year and entry into service in 1986. The Portland light rail system was the third modern system of its type to open in the US, following San Diego in 1981 and Buffalo (which was intended to be a heavy-rail subway but morphed into a hybrid light rail system when funding ran short) in 1984.

I've also added a new top-level "car type" classification to the PNAERC list. Until now, I've been classifying LRVs as rapid transit cars, but I've just created a new "light rail vehicle" classification. There are now 14 LRVs on the list, including seven San Diego U2 cars, four 1970s-era Boeing SLRVs, and three one-offs, including TriMet 101. OERHS also joins Western Railway Museum and Southern California Railway Museum as the only organizations to roster LRVs of multiple types, though WRM still leads the way with three different types of LRV (and from three different systems, no less).

A Steeplecab Stumper

Many thanks to Paul Schneble, who sent me a series of corrections and additional tidbits of information (like the builder number for this thing). One thing he pointed out involves the steeplecab shown above, Missoula Street Railway .03, preserved at the Oregon Electric Railway Museum. But after looking into it a bit, I'm just more confused.

Let's start with what we think we know. This thing was supposedly built by General Electric in 1903 (we'll come back to this), was Missoula Street Railway (MSR) .03 (there's photographic evidence of this), and after MSR quit it became Anaconda Copper 351 or L351, depending on which source you use. In 1973 it was pulled off the scrap line along with another pair of early electric locomotives and preserved as part of the OERHS collection. One of these is Anaconda Copper 254, an odd-looking GE built in 1916, and the other is Anaconda Copper 401, a very early "standard" Baldwin-Westinghouse dating to 1912 and described in Joe Strapac's book on B-W locomotives as the very first "Class B" steeplecab built.

What Paul pointed out is that Strapac's B-W book also includes Anaconda Copper (ACC) 351, the locomotive pictured at the top of this post that was supposedly built by GE in 1903, in its B-W order list. But there are discrepancies. Strapac says that ACC 351 was built in 1911 as a Class B, builder #36840, as Western Lumber Company 1. It later became ACC 351. That makes sense, I guess, since WLC was bought by ACC in 1928 - but it doesn't say anything about the locomotive belonging to MSR. And the locomotive itself doesn't look anything like a B-W Class B. For one thing, it's got Taylor trucks!

Strapac's book also says that ACC 351 is preserved at OERHS but it suggests that ACC 401, builder #38616, was scrapped, which doesn't seem right given that the locomotive appears very much preserved.

Anyone have further insight into this? I'd love to know what motors and control (if any) are in these locomotives, but I've never found an OERHS roster with that level of technical detail and I don't know anybody with that organization. If MSR .03 has GE motors, that strongly implies it is indeed a GE. But the mystery wouldn't quite be over even then, because MSR didn't exist until about 1910 and the locomotive's number suggests (though doesn't prove) that it may not have been bought by MSR until as late as the mid-1920s. So, who owned it when it was new? And is it possible that ACC renumbering records got mixed up at some point? If so, is locomotive 401 actually builder #36840 or #38616? Curiouser and curiouser!

Historic Railway Restoration

Many thanks to Vince Mendenhall, co-owner of Historic Railway Restoration, for sending a full roster of their collection. I'm very appreciative of the chance to correct some errors and omissions I had; coming up with solid information on privately owned collections can be difficult, so this is a big help.

The short version is, the HRR roster has gone from four cars to six. One car formerly listed, Tacoma Birney 219, has been removed; it appears that was an erroneous listing. Another car that's been on the list for a while, Tacoma Birney 326, was formerly at the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society but is now owned by HRR, so its owner has been updated.

Then we get to the fun stuff: additions to the list! The first car at HRR that hadn't been on the list previously is Everett, WA Birney 5, a very early example of the type built in 1917 by American. Everett actually ended up with the very first Birney ever built (at least, according to the late Dr. Harold Cox, the authority on Birneys), a car built in late 1916, and car 5 was constructed just a year later. It ran in its home city for just six years, after which it was transferred to Tacoma. It's the only streetcar from Everett known to be preserved.

The second newly added HRR car is Tacoma "turtleback" 202, a double-truck city car built in 1912 by Cincinnati. I believe it's the car pictured in this article from about 15 years ago, suggesting it's not in great shape. It is significant, though; of four Tacoma streetcars on the PNAERC list, this is the only one that isn't a Birney. (That said, there's a mystery "turtleback" body stored at the Ballard Terminal Railroad in Seattle that I haven't been able to identify, so that could be a second Tacoma car of this type.)

It should also be mentioned that HRR has been involved with a couple of cosmetic restoration projects involving Washington state electric cars. Bellingham Birney 360, formerly listed (erroneously) as having been restored for the Helen Loggie Museum, was actually restored cosmetically by HRR for the City of Bellingham and is now in storage there awaiting completion of a display building. Tacoma Birney 324 is the car actually restored for the Helen Loggie Museum by HRR (post-restoration photo above courtesy Vince Mendenhall), and it has been moved to Bellingham for storage while "The Loggie" constructs a display pavilion.

Portland Railway Light & Power 1067

Today we've got an update on Portland Railway Light & Power 1067 courtesy of Nick Christiansen, who is working on that car. PRL&P 1067 is a wooden interurban coach built in the company shops in 1906. It's a very historic car because it's the only surviving PRL&P interurban passenger car - and PRL&P isn't just another interurban, it has its origins in one of the very first "true" interurban lines built anywhere in the U.S., the line to Oregon City constructed in 1893.

Car 1067, shown in the two c1910 photos above (all photos copyright Nick Christiansen), is a pretty standard full-sized interurban car of a design typical of the Portland system. It ran until 1945 (later photo here), I believe, at which point it was turned into a cabin in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Above is a photo taken in 1980 of car 1067 and sister car 1065. The former was saved and moved to the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society site while the latter, which had been sitting on the ground was in much worse condition, was disassembled for parts.

In recent years car 1067 has been sitting on trucks in the OERHS barn but its stripped condition precluded much serious restoration work. Nick reports that this, however, has changed. The parts retrieved from Portland Traction 1058 have been allocated to help restore PRL&P 1067. This includes correct-type Brill 27E trucks, GE Type M control equipment, AMM schedule brakes, and other parts. The photos above show the current state of car 1067, with its east side in primer and its west side currently stripped and awaiting new windows. The car's interior is pretty well stripped, as is typically the case with cars saved as bodies.

And here's some what what will be going back on to car 1067. At top, an entire set of new windows has been fabricated for the car; then there's a smattering of components salvaged from PTCo 1058; and at bottom is a C6K controller that will go to car 1067. The PRL&P car's record has been updated in the PNAERC database to reflect the equipment assigned to it and the fact that it is undergoing restoration work. Many thanks to Nick for this update, and I look forward to hearing more about this project as it moves forward.

East Side Railway 1455

Today's change for the roster was to add ownership history information for East Side Railway 1455, a standard McGuire-Cummings snow sweeper owned by the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society. Previously there was no real ownership history for this car, but it turns out their website has some good info on its revenue service history. The only unknown date left is when it was acquired by OERHS from the City of Portland.