ALP-44 Preserved in New Jersey

The United Railroad Historical Society in New Jersey has announced via a Facebook post that it has acquired New Jersey Transit 4424, the 1996-vintage ALP-44 type electric locomotive pictured above in an image from that post. This is the first mainline electric locomotive to enter preservation in five years, since IRM acquired a (nearly identical) AEM-7 from Amtrak in 2018, and it makes 4424 the newest piece of equipment of any type on the PNAERC list, edging out LA Metro 164 after that light rail car spent just two months in the "youngest" spot.

NJT 4424 was built by Asea Brown Boveri, which was formed in 1987 by merging ASEA and Brown Boveri & Cie. ABB took over the existing ASEA AEM-7 design and updated it as the ALP-44, selling 32 of the new model to NJT and one to SEPTA. NJT ordered its locomotives in three batches between 1989 and 1996, with 4424 being part of the final 1996 order that was placed to provide added motive power for the then-new "Midtown Direct" service via the Kearny Connection. The locomotive had a short service life of just 15 years and was retired in 2011. Unlike most of the members of NJT's ALP-44 fleet, which were stored along the old Lackawanna Cutoff near Port Morris Yard and badly vandalized, 4424 was one of a handful stored safely at an NJT maintenance facility in Kearny. It was transferred to the URHS and moved this week to Boonton. There it joins a collection of mainline railroad equipment that includes two GG-1s and an E60CH, along with some derelict MU cars stored at a satellite location.

New Jersey historic cars

Piscataway Township in New Jersey, of all things, has posted on Facebook some photos of a selection of historic New Jersey electric cars. The post shows photos of two cars owned by the United Railroad Historical Society and one car owned by the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society, which is closely affiliated with URHS. NJ Transit 5221 and NJ Transit 5223 are rather aged work cars that until only a decade ago served on the Newark subway system. Both of these are cars whose histories are somewhat uncertain; car 5223 in particular is a bit of a mystery, as it was obviously rebuilt from a standard passenger car but which one is unknown to me. The third car is PSCT 2651, a Public Service standard car built in 1917 and subject of a slow long-term restoration effort by NJERHS. (Until now this car has been listed on the roster under the railway name "New Jersey Consolidated Transport" but that has been corrected to PSCT.) All three cars are apparently stored at the site of a Kinkisharyo plant in Piscataway where subway cars from Atlanta will soon be undergoing rebuild. What the long-term plans are for these cars, which have knocked around various locations in the northeast including the National Capital Trolley Museum and Lyons Industries in Pennsylvania, is uncertain.

And now for the appeal for help: does anyone have any mechanical information on these cars?