A 4000 for East Troy

 

The news was posted on RyPN this week that Chicago Transit Authority 4439, a standard 4000-series Chicago 'L' cars, has been moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to the East Troy Electric Railroad. This move was mentioned on this blog a few months ago but it has now actually happened, so car 4439 has been updated with its new owner and location. The TLE&W still has a pair of ex-New York Central MU cars and an unidentified Lackawanna MU car on their roster but car 4439 was the last vestige of the Grand Rapids Electric Railway collection that had been amassed by Charley Sheets. From outward appearances the car looks to be largely complete and generally in excellent condition.

So that's one fewer owner of CTA 4000s as listed on the PNAERC roster. According to the list there are a total of 30 CTA 4000s still remaining, consisting of one "Baldy" trailer, three "Baldy" motor cars, and 26 "Plushies" (the latter category including cars like 4439). These are spread out among a total of 13 owners. Right now there are only two museums that are actually operating 4000s: East Troy and the Illinois Railway Museum. East Troy has both of their 4000s in service (4439 will give them a three-car train) while IRM has four of its six cars in operation including its "Baldy." The CTA itself, certainly not a museum, also has a pair of cars in its historic collection that see occasional use for PR purposes. A fourth organization, Fox River Trolley Museum, has a pair of 4000s undergoing heavy overhaul work, including a now-rare example of a car rebuilt with gasket-ized upper sash. It likely won't be too long before these cars are back in operation.

The remaining nine organizations are a mixed bag of museums and private owners. The Connecticut Trolley Museum owns more 4000s than anyone else except IRM, with four cars (including a "Baldy" motor car that the museum converted into a trailer), but none are in very good condition and two have been offered for sale. The Northern Ohio Railway Museum also owns three 4000s, including the last "Baldy" trailer, but its three cars are in relatively poor condition too and all have been deaccessed from the historic collection and/or offered for sale. There are two (now-rare) 4000-series work cars at the Middletown & Hummelstown, a lone car at Branford, and a lone car at the Ohio Railway Museum, all in fairly decrepit condition. The Michigan Transit Museum has a pair of 4000s, one of which is maintained in reasonably good condition and towed by a diesel as part of that organization's tourist train. And finally there are three (maybe two-and-a-half) cars in private collections: the remnants of one car at Buckeye Lake Trolley have been cut down to just the floor, one car in Indiana that is in limbo after having been rescued from the scrappers descending on the Indiana Transportation Museum in 2018, and one stored indoors in Escanaba, Michigan.

Cars on the move

 

It appears that the East Troy Electric Railroad has purchased CTA 4439, shown above in a somewhat recent photo from the First & Fastest Facebook page, from its current owner, the Toledo Lake Erie & Western. This is one of the more elusive of the preserved 4000s and has been off public display for a couple of decades at least. I vaguely recall seeing it back about 20 years ago and, as the above photo suggests, it appears to be in good condition. After it left CTA in 1975, I believe it was briefly stored in Michigan City before going to the state of Michigan where it was stored by the Oakland County Parks & Recreation Commission. I have no idea why OCP&RC acquired this car nor what their plans were for it. I think (but am not sure) that they're the ones responsible for fixing it up and putting it in this green paint scheme. It later made its way to Charley Sheets' collection in Toledo, thence to Grand Rapids, OH, and into possession of the TLE&W as outlined here. I haven't changed the car's listing over to East Troy yet, as it hasn't yet physically made its way to Wisconsin, but that should just be a matter of time.

And in unrelated news, Gord McOuat has sent me the numbers of the latest two Toronto CLRV's to be acquired by Halton County. Car 4040 and car 4053 were acquired by Halton as parts sources, however the museum hasn't yet decided which two of their (now) six CLRV's will be scrapped for parts and which four will be retained. So it's quite likely that one or both of these cars may end up being retained for preservation. In any event, both cars have now been added to the PNAERC list, bringing the total number of preserved CLRV's up to 14.

Philadelphia snow sweeper scrapped

Word comes along that Philadelphia snow sweeper C-124 has been parted out and scrapped. This was a standard 1923 Brill-built double-truck sweeper, identical to several others in preservation, that was in service into the early 1970s. It initially went to the Ohio Railway Museum in Worthington but at some later point, likely in the 1980s or early 1990s, it was sold to the owner of the Waterfront Electric in Toledo. This later became the Grand Rapids Electric Railway in Grand Rapids, Ohio but was never open to the public in that location. Most of the equipment at the GRER site went to Northern Ohio a few years back but two cars remained and, in 2014, were acquired by the adjacent Toledo Lake Erie & Western tourist railroad. Sweeper C-124 was one of these and it was sold to be stripped for parts for other preserved sweepers of this series.

Even with the loss of C-124 there are nine of these big Philadelphia sweepers preserved. They're in a range of conditions, from grounded body to operating car, but at least two have been stored inside ever since they left service and there's no risk of the type going extinct or even coming close. As for the TLE&W, the last remaining electric car from the GRER collection left in situ is Chicago Transit Authority 4439, still stored inside.

RIP GRER

It's been quite a while since I wrote a post but I have indeed been updating the new PNAERC site. One of several changes made in recent months is the closing out of listings for the Grand Rapids Electric Railway of Grand Rapids, Ohio. The GRER was the successor to the Waterfront Electric Railway, both of them owned (or at least managed) by Charley Sheets. Starting nearly 20 years ago Charley began downsizing his collection, which at the time was mostly stored inside a barn located in Grand Rapids at the west end of the Toledo Lake Erie & Western tourist railroad. I recall being shown inside the barn around 1998; it was an interesting and fairly eclectic collection at the time.

Most of the collection ended up at the Northern Ohio Railway Museum but one steeplecab went to the local history museum in Sylvania, Ohio and two pieces of equipment remained stored in the barn. These two, a CTA 4000 that underwent some rehab work at some point years ago and a Philadephia double-truck sweeper that had been regauged by the Ohio Railway Museum prior to its sale to GRER, were transferred to the Toledo Lake Erie & Western and GRER has - apparently - ceased to exist. Evidently this transfer actually took place in 2014 but it took me until earlier this year before I realized it. Anyway, the snow sweeper (C-124) is being scrapped with the parts going to Scranton (or so I'm told) while CTA 4439 is being kept around by the TLE&W for some undetermined future use.

I may as well also note that the TLE&W was already on the PNAERC list, as it owns a pair of ex-New York Central heavyweight MU cars as well as an unidentified (and hence not listed) ex-DL&W MU car. Anyone know the number of the Lackawanna MU car on the TLE&W?