Jersey Shore Streetcar Threatened

The Jersey Shore Historical Society of Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, announced today on their Facebook page that contrary to previous plans, they are not going to acquire the body of Jersey Shore Street Railway 14. The car is currently stored at the Peter Herdic Transportation Museum in Williamsport, PA, but that museum has deaccessed it and wants it gone by August 2024. JSHS had come to an agreement in 2021 to acquire the car (see here) but they've decided that they need the funds elsewhere. If a new home is not found, the car will presumably be demolished.

Car 14 is a body, of course, and it's far from pristine but it looks to be in better shape than a lot of bodies out there. According to information I've received, it was built in 1894 as an open car but its builder is unknown. It originally ran in Philadelphia, first for the Electric Traction Company, then for Union Traction, then for Philadelphia Rapid Transit, where it was numbered 86. It's not clear when it went to Jersey Shore, but on JSSR it was first numbered 101 and was later rebuilt as a one-man car and renumbered 14. The photo above was taken in 2021.

Jersey Shore car identified

 

The Jersey Shore Historical Society in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania (no, not New Jersey) has posted some information on its Facebook page (no log-in required) about Jersey Shore Street Railway 14. This is the single-truck streetcar body that has been at the Peter Herdic Transportation Museum and was only added to the PNAERC list about three months ago (see here).

The post from JSHS is quite interesting. The gist is that they are acquiring the car from the Peter Herdic museum and plan on restoring it over the next few years. So that's good news, and once the car is physically moved I'll change over its ownership on the PNAERC list. But they also include some interesting information on the car's history. Most notably, I now know its number: JSR 14. Per a previous email from Matt Nawn, I knew that the car was part of the JSSR 14-16 series but didn't know which car it was. Matt reported that JSSR 14 would have earlier been Philadelphia Rapid Transit 86 (sold to JSSR at an unknown date along with PRT 939 and 942) and would have then been numbered JSSR 101 until it was rebuilt - again at an unknown date - as a one-man car and renumbered 14. So there are still plenty of unknowns about the car's history, and the automatically-generated list of its past owners on the PNAERC roster is out of order because there are so many missing dates, but this helps fill in some pretty big gaps.

Finally, the JSHS post has some nice photos of the car before it was tarped, including the one at the top of this post. For a body, it looks like it's in decent condition, or at least it was when the photos were taken.

Jersey Shore streetcar added to list

Many thanks to Bill Wall, who has alerted me to an article written in the latest Friends of Philadelphia Trolleys newsletter by another friend of the blog, Matt Nawn. The article is about the discovery of a heretofore unknown streetcar that has been preserved by the Peter Herdic Transportation Museum in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The car, whose number is uncertain, was built in 1894 for the Electric Traction Company of Philadelphia (later Union Traction, later Philadelphia Rapid Transit) as a single-truck open car. Matt's article says that three PRT open cars numbered 86, 939, and 942 were sold at some point to the Jersey Shore Street Railway in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, where they became JSSR 101-103. Later still the cars were apparently rebuilt as closed cars and renumbered again as JSSR 14-16 (or I may have that renumbering backwards, I'm not positive). JSSR was abandoned in 1930 so this particular car, which is one of these three ex-PRT converted open cars, was retired no later than that year.

Its body has now shown up under a tarp on the lawn of the PHTM in Williamsport as shown above in a Google Street View image. The museum is city-owned, and seems to be well-funded, so perhaps a cosmetic restoration of this car is in store. As for me, I've added it to the list along with a note about its likely fleet number, but I'd also be interested in more information about it - like who built it and when it got sold to Jersey Shore. This information may simply not exist, but if anyone has better records on JSSR than I do (which doesn't say much) then any help is appreciated. Thank you!

I should also take a moment to point out that of all the small hamlets in Pennsylvania that once boasted electric railways, Jersey Shore really stands out for the number of its electric cars that are still around. Besides this new car - which admittedly is probably more significant as an early single-truck Philadelphia car than a Jersey Shore car - there's also JSSR single-truck closed car number 4, which is privately owned and undergoing restoration, and there's Jersey Shore & Antes Fort 3, an interurban car that ran out of the city and is now preserved at PTM.