New England News

A couple of pieces of interesting pieces of information have surfaced from New England. First, it seems SEPTA 618 is on its way to its new home at the Trolley Museum of New York. I've updated its ownership in the PNAERC roster because it's left Seashore, though it hasn't yet arrived in Kingston. The car should be a good match with TMNY, given that it comes with standard-gauge trucks originally off a PATH K-car, so it can be towed in operation at its new home.

And thanks go to Matthew Juergens from the Connecticut Trolley Museum, who passes along information about recent happenings there. The museum is currently in the process of repainting their two-axle Corbin steeplecab, E2. A photo of the recent progress is below, and I have updated the locomotive's status to "undergoing restoration." Thanks, Matthew!

Tarped Cars on Truck Trailers in the Northeast

Thanks to Bill Wall for supplying news and photos regarding the conveyance of New Jersey Transit 5221, a utility/line car built in 1912, to Branford today. The car was moved by Silk Road from its recent home at the Kinkisharyo plant in Piscataway, New Jersey, and was unloaded in East Haven.

Car 5221 was built by Russell in 1912 as a snow plow and freight motor for the Trenton Terminal Railroad (later Public Service Railroad, then Public Service Coordinated Transport) system in New Jersey. At some point it was rebuilt as a line car, and in that guise it stayed in service on the Newark subway until it was transferred off the property in 2009. The car bounced around: it went to the National Capital Trolley Museum for a while, then was at Lyons Industries in Pennsylvania for truck rebuilding c2016-2017, and afterward ended up in Piscataway. The photo above, from this blog, was taken around 2018, but in 2019 the car was tarped and put outside. (The four photos below were all taken by Bill Wall.)

For five years or so, the car looked like this, tarped with a shrink-wrap "boat tarp" next to the Kinkisharyo building.

But through whatever means, the car was acquired by Branford. Above, it's shown loaded on a trailer.

And these last two photos, taken today, show the car on the line at Branford.

This is only the second line car in Branford's collection, and their first double-truck line car. (Oddly enough, among the "three sisters" that started the traction preservation movement in New England - Seashore, Warehouse Point, and Branford - there are only six line cars preserved among them, and 5221 is one of only two that are double-truck cars.) Car 5221 is one of six intact cars from the PSCT system before the PCC era, and four of those cars are now preserved at Branford.

The second car on the move is shown below (apologies for the thumbnail-sized image, which is a screen grab from a video posted by Seashore). You'd be hard pressed to tell from the tarp, but this is the famous Berkshire Hills, the business car from the Berkshire Street Railway that is the only survivor from that storied system.

This car was built by Wason in 1903, retired way back in 1922, and sold in 1932 for use as a diner. Following a 1994 fire that caused substantial damage, the body was acquired by Seashore in 1995, where it has been stored ever since. The car is now en route to its new home at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum, a transfer that has been planned for over a year. This is the second car on Seashore's "re-homing lists" to go to a new home; the first, MBTA line car 3283, also went to Shelburne Falls. The SFTM collection now totals five cars on PNAERC; Seashore's stands at 189 pieces; and the NJERHS is down to six cars while Branford is up one to 91 cars.

Roanoke Master Unit Changes Hands

News has come via Facebook (no log-in required, just "X" out of the pop-up) from the Roanoke Chapter NRHS that they have acquired Roanoke Railway & Electric 51 from the Seashore Trolley Museum. The car is shown above in an image from the announcement post.

Car 51 was built by Brill in 1929 as Virginia Electric Power 115 and originally it ran in Lynchburg. In 1937, it was sold to RR&E, where it operated for 10 years until it was retired. It was later a diner in Callaghan, Virginia, and was acquired in late 1991 or early 1992 by Seashore as part of the museum's "last round-up" body collecting spree. The car is in rough shape; the photos posted by the NRHS group indicate that its window posts were cut away on one side and it's got structural problems with the roof. It is, however, an undeniably historic car. The "Master Unit" wasn't tremendously successful, with only a handful of cities ordering them, but it was significant insofar as it sought to update streetcar design with the latest automotive trends. It was also an attempt to create an industry-standard car design.

Only four true "rubber stamp" Master Units survive today. Three are from Yakima, including two in complete condition and one that was abandoned in a forest for decades and had a tree fall on it; and then there's Roanoke 51. The Roanoke car is older than the Yakima cars and was built by Brill in Philadelphia, whereas the Yakima cars were built by American in St. Louis. The "true" Master Units are outnumbered in preservation by later, "modernized Master Unit" Brill cars built for Red Arrow and other systems.

Car 51 is the second car in Kennebunkport, after the "Berkshire Hills," awaiting transportation to a new home. I haven't updated car 51's ownership on PNAERC yet; I'll wait until the car has actually moved home to Virginia to do that. But hopefully this marks a new, positive chapter in the car's history.

Streetcars on the Move

It's not every day an old streetcar moves from one museum to another. And it's definitely not every day that two streetcars move from one museum to another in totally unrelated moves. But, that day was today!

First up, New Orleans Public Service 966 has ended a 21-year stint on loan from its owner, the Seashore Trolley Museum, to the Lowell Historical Park in Lowell, Massachusetts. Today it was transported back to Maine and unloaded at Seashore. The above photo is pretty impressive: the Silk Road truck carrying 966 threads its way between the Seashore visitor center and Tower C, complete with a ConnCo open car and even a rainbow visible in the background. Car 966 is believed to be operational, so it will be a welcome addition in Kennebunkport, where the regular operating fleet stands at just three cars thanks to motor failures and various other mechanical issues. Until now it was the only car on the PNAERC list in Lowell; the Gomaco-built replica cars are still there, but since they're replicas, they're not on the list. Thanks to Eric Gilman for posting the photo.

A few hundred miles away in western Pennsylvania, another streetcar was "touching down" in a new home. Philadelphia Rapid Transit 2282, a 1906 Brill product, is the oldest double-truck car from that city in existence and the only example of a really "standard" Philly car from before the Nearside era. It's been stored at Electric City Trolley Museum for some time, but they are short on space and needed to pare down their collection a bit. Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum had room, so PTM is the new home for this historic - albeit undoubtedly less-than-pristine - car. It was unloaded in PTM's storage building today. This leaves ECTM with 23 cars on the list, though two of those are stored off-site and not accessioned.

And in unrelated news, an anonymous photographer sent me some pictures of the accidental scrapping of the Waterville Birney described here. I think we all hope that Seashore's future car re-homing efforts will hew more toward the example of 2282 and less toward this.

Whoops

A truly bizarre story has emerged from the Seashore Trolley Museum. They've accidentally scrapped one of their cars.

The car in question, shown above in photos taken this past March, was Waterville Fairfield & Oakland 60. One of about a dozen cars at Seashore hailing from Maine, it was originally built in 1923 by Brill for the Plymouth & Brockton Street Railway in Massachusetts as their car 400. In 1928, it was sold to the WF&O in Maine, where it operated until retirement in 1937. Its body came to Seashore in 1991 as part of the "Last Roundup" carbody collecting frenzy and it's been in storage since then. It was the last WF&O car and the last P&B car in existence, and was a moderately rare example of a double-truck Birney.

So, how do you accidentally scrap a car? Seashore emailed out a statement outlining the chain of events, which I've reproduced below for posterity. They brought in an outside company, evidently a scrapper, with an eye toward having the scrapper cut up Ottawa 825, which is on their "re-homing list." However, after consulting with the scrapper, they decided to put off this job because car 825 wasn't easily accessible to heavy equipment. And yet, museum volunteers evidently didn't get the word that the job had been put off; decided to invite the scrapper to cut up car 825 anyway; and then had the scrappers start on the wrong car. The result was that the scrapper had already started demolishing WF&O 60 by the time anyone realized something was amiss.

The museum is now stripping parts from the body and disposing of what's left. I've removed car 60 from the PNAERC list, leaving Seashore with 189 cars on the list. This particular car had presented a potential conundrum to Seashore; they've been rapidly deaccessing their sizable collection of deteriorated car bodies, of which this was clearly one. On the other hand, this particular car was also a part of the prized collection of Maine cars, making it a candidate to stay in the collection despite its condition. That decision is moot now.

The official statement from Seashore:

Dear Members of Our Valued Community,

I am reaching out to inform you of an unfortunate incident that occurred on Wednesday, July 24, which has affected our museum collection.

Due to the age and deterioration of some of the pieces in our collection, the decision was made by our Board of Trustees to de-accession specific cars that are beyond restoration so they can be offered through our re-homing efforts to other museums and hobbyists. After several months or years of pursuing another home for these items, the Curatorial Committee, authorized by the Board of Trustees, voted to move these cars to the campus scrap list. Our professional staff, along with Seashore volunteers or third-party contractors, would then manage the scrapping process.  We have policies in place for these activities, a series of checks and balances, to control how the cars in our collection are managed, the pace at which we seek to re-home an item, and steps in place for what needs to happen prior to scrapping a car in our collection before this work is completed. 

This year, the museum contracted a company we have used in the past to help us advance our car body scrapping efforts. In April 2024, upon review of the location of one car body in the scope of work, Ottawa 825, museum leadership and the contractor decided that we would not pursue this project with this contractor until other steps were taken by our yard crew to make the car body accessible to scrapped; the car body is currently not accessible to the needed machinery. These steps were communicated in writing by the contractor, and the timeline to pursue removing Ottawa 825 was pushed into fall 2024 to allow the volunteer-led departments involved in this process the time to complete this pre-work.

However, on July 24, without the knowledge of museum leadership, this contractor subcontracted directly with Seashore volunteers to scrap the Ottawa 825 car body. The contractor brought in equipment for another project the contractor was completing on campus and offered the equipment to these individuals to use to complete this work. 

Assuming this contractor had arranged this project with the museum's leadership, the subcontracted volunteers began what they thought was work to help the museum move forward on our scrapping initiatives.  The subcontracted volunteers did not confirm this work with our Executive Director, nor did they confirm the location of Ottawa 825 with our Executive Director, which are two of the steps listed in our scrapping policy. Several minutes into this work, the subcontracted volunteers realized that they had begun scrapping the wrong car body; instead of Ottawa 825, the team was in the process of scrapping Waterville 60.  Museum leadership was informed of the error after significant damage to the car's roof and vestibules had already been done.

The Curatorial Committee asked Restoration Shop staff and volunteers to assess the condition of Waterville 60 the following day; all reported that due to the car body's current location and condition, nothing within the museum's means can be done to safely continue preserving Waterville 60. The Curatorial Committee unanimously recommended to the Board of Trustees to de-accession Waterville 60 for immediate scrapping, and the Board of Trustees held an informational meeting on Friday July 26 and a follow-up email vote in accordance with our bylaws to do so. With the boards affirming vote, our Executive Director is now leading the efforts to remove Waterville 60, working with the contractor and other campus volunteers to come up with a plan for the safe removal of parts from the car body prior to completing the scrapping efforts.

Museum policy states that confirmation of a car’s demolition with leadership must be completed prior to taking any action. While this did not happen, leading to this loss to our collection of Waterville 60 and the added expense of needing to scrap the intended car, the issue has been addressed with those involved.  Reminders of this policy have been issued.  The museum will no longer be working with this contractor to scrap items in our collection or on our property.  We're also reviewing current museum policies for changes that may prevent a repeat of this event.

As valued members of our museum community, we wanted to share these details as you may have heard about the incident and we know you value the preservation of rail history as we all do.  This is a loss for our collection and historic transit preservation. While Waterville 60 was not one of the Maine trolleys listed in the National Register of Historic Places, nor has it ever received high enough priority within our collection to receive indoor storage, the car body is believed to be the last of its kind and is the only double truck Birney car in our collection.

We value the contributions of our volunteers and recognize that this museum’s operations would not be possible without their hard work, knowledge, and generosity with their time. The tremendous growth we have experienced over the past decade is a result of those of us who have worked together as a team to accomplish great things. Working alone or in silos is no longer a fit for our collaborative campus culture. This is a stark reminder that all of us need to work together to continue to move the museum and our collection forward; our Executive Director Katie Orlando and Director of Museum Operations Steve Berg must serve as the main contacts for all work taking place on our campus to prevent incidents like this from occurring again in the future.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Another Postcard from Kennebunkport

Bill Wulfert has sent more photos from Winterfest, held this past weekend at the Seashore Trolley Museum, with this batch including many of Seashore's more commonly photographed pieces. Enjoy!

One of the denizens of Town House Shop at Seashore is Bay State Street Railway 4175, an attractive semiconvertible built in 1914 by Laconia that later ran in Rhode Island and New Jersey. This car was the prototype for the replica that operates today in Lowell, Mass.

One of the cars in operation over the weekend was Claremont Railway 4, the museum's diminutive line car.

One of three North Shore Line interurban cars at Seashore, car 420 was built in 1928 as an open-platform observation car and later converted to a double-ended coach. It is currently out of service with a failed traction motor.

Fellow Highwood alum NSL 755 is a 1930 Standard product, shown here in both an exterior and an interior view.

Connecticut Company open car 303 was built by Brill in 1901 for the Winchester Avenue Railway. It's shown in Seashore's brand-new South Boston carbarn, a beautiful three-track, nine-berth structure that was just completed within the past few months.

One of Seashore's regular service stalwarts is ConnCo 1160, shown here, a 1906 Stephenson suburban car that was completely restored by the museum. It's one of only nine Stephenson cars preserved and one of just four in operation.

The next two images show Cleveland Railway 1227, which was one of the most recently completed of Seashore's famous frame-up restorations. Not only was this car received as a basket case, but it had been rebuilt by Shaker Heights Rapid Transit. Seashore did a lot of work to backdate it to its condition in the late 1910s.

There are three Chicago "Big Pullmans" preserved, and the only one not at IRM is CSL 225. It's currently out of service with a failed motor.

Chicago Transit Authority 1 was used as a propulsion equipment test car by General Electric after it was retired by the CTA. It's currently available.

DC Transit 1304 is a beautifully restored prewar PCC from the nation's capital. It's shown in the new South Boston carbarn. Unfortunately, at the moment it is out of service with a bad MG set.

Eastern Mass Street Railway 4387 is one of that system's distinctive suburban semi-convertible cars. It's been fully restored by Seashore but is currently out of service with a blown motor, I believe.

The most modern rapid transit cars at Seashore are MBTA 0622-0623, shown here on display, built in 1979 by Hawker-Siddeley. They were operational until recently but I'm not certain of their current status. I believe that due to track conditions, Seashore isn't running heavy interurbans or rapid transit cars on their main line.

MBTA 5159 is one of several snow plows at Seashore that were converted from Type 3 semi-convertibles built in 1908.

Bill snapped this photo of a distinctive Boston third rail beam, shown on one of the Cambridge-Dorchester subway cars.

The "City of Manchester" and Atlantic Shore Line 100 are certainly among the prides of the fleet at Seashore, both the result of major multi-year restoration efforts. ASL 100 has the added distinction of having run over the museum's right-of-way during its service career.

The centerpiece of Town House Shop at the moment is Portland-Lewiston 14, the "Narcissus," a 1912 Laconia-built interurban car that is the subject of a lengthy and involved restoration.

Don't get used to seeing SEPTA 618 at Seashore - it's heading to a new home at the Trolley Museum of New York sometime soon.

SEPTA 2278, aka "New Hampshire" since it was painted in Bicentennial colors in the 1970s, began life as Kansas City Public Service 781. It came to Seashore in 2012.

Twin City Rapid Transit 1267 is a beautifully restored standard car from Minnesota. Seashore restored it to its original "gate car" configuration, with an open rear platform and no passenger entry at the front. I'm not sure whether it's currently operational.

One of the photo lineups the museum set up was in front of the new South Boston barn with DC Transit 1304, featured earlier, and Toronto 2890, a 1923 Ottawa-built Peter Witt acquired in 2000 from Halton County. The Witt has been the subject of recent work but is not currently operational.

A true masterpiece of restoration, Wheeling Street Railway 639 is one of only two Cincinnati curve-siders in operation. It was restored - practically replicated - from the shell of a body and is one of the regular service cars at Seashore.

And to finish off, we'll add some property shots. Bill sent an exterior and an interior photo of Seashore's newest focus, the model railroad building. This was built by a sizable grant from one or two wealthy donors.

Here we are in the new South Boston carbarn, showing off features like the insulated walls, steel framing, wall-to-wall concrete and between-rails inspection pit. This replaces the older, smaller, and decidedly ramshackle South Boston barn, which was demolished a year or two ago.

And we'll finish with a couple of night photo shoots. First, the two operating ConnCo cars.

And here are 639, 1304, and 2890 in front of the new South Boston barn.

Postcard from Kennebunkport

Many thanks to Bill Wulfert, who participated in this past weekend's Winterfest event at the Seashore Trolley Museum. It sounds like the event was well attended, with some 180 or so people from various museums. There were quite a few seminars and discussions that were scheduled in advance; the museum's new model railroad was up and running; some cars were staged for nighttime photo shows; and there were operations, of course, provided by two electric cars (ConnCo 1160 and Claremont 4), a diesel, and a speeder. Fortunately for roster aficionados like myself, though, Bill mostly pointed his camera toward the less often photographed cars in the Seashore collection. Enjoy!

First, a few photos of South Shore 32, which is on the deaccession list for obvious reasons.

Next up is CTA 6600, part of the furthest-east pair of "spam cans" in preservation.

Dallas Railway & Terminal 608 is a standard Dallas double-end PCC, but it has the distinction of being the only one of its type that has been backdated to original appearance. This was done by Seashore some years ago and the car still looks quite nice, though the inside seems to be suffering a bit.

The two below photos show Boston 3019, built in 1941, one of the oldest PCC cars from the Hub City. It's stored in an open-ended barn, hence the protective tarp over its front end. This car never had a low monitor roof like most of the city's PCCs had.

Another "flat top" PCC from Boston is MBTA 3037, shown here, a 1944 "wartime" car which is also on the deaccession list.

MBTA 3069 is from the same 1944 order as 3037. It's been displayed mounted on the "highway monster," Seashore's infamous car-moving trailer, for at least 25 years. In recent years, though, it's been tarped. Like 3037, it's on the deaccession list.

MBTA 3083 is another wartime car, though from a different order than the previous two cars.

One thing I really appreciate is that in at least some cases, Seashore labels their tarps. MBTA 3327 is a Dallas double-ender that was heavily rebuilt for work car service, including a big baggage door in the middle of the car side. It's on the deaccession list.

MBTA 3332, another ex-Dallas car, was also in work service late in its career. It, too, is on the deaccession list.

In addition to backdated Dallas car 608, shown earlier, double-end car 3340 is the other car of this type Seashore has restored. This one is in Boston MTA colors to represent this type's early years after arriving in the northeast. For a while in the 2010s, I believe this car was the "gate guardian," but if I'm not mistaken that role is currently filled by an MBTA dump motor.

Bill wasn't certain which car this was, but was pretty sure it was a Montreal car. So, I'm guessing this is the interior of Montreal Tramways 2052, a 1927 Wason product originally built for Springfield, MA.

Pittsburgh Railways 1440 represents that city in Seashore's collection. It's a 1942 prewar car. Bill points out that in the second photo, you can see the unusual (unique?) slotted step treads.

Philadelphia PCC 2289 is an ex-Kansas City car that had an unusual preservation career. It entered preservation early, in 1967, when it went to Trolley Valhalla. Sometime after that group gave way to the Buckingham Valley group, 2289 was sold to a private owner, who stored it outside for 30 or 35 years. It came to Seashore in 2012 with the unique distinction, I believe, of being the only Philadelphia PCC in preservation that never ran for SEPTA.

A far more typical Philadelphia PCC is this car, SEPTA 2709, a run-of-the-mill GOH car.

Tired of PCCs? Cleanse your pallet with this shot of York Utilities 82, a 1919 American-built Birney that comprised one half of the Denver & South Platte roster before being sold for service in Maine in 1927. It and its fellow D&SP car came to Seashore in 1946.