A post on the Railway Preservation News "Interchange" here shows that Scranton Transit 505, the only remaining Osgood-Bradley "Electromobile," is now the focus of serious restoration work. Fundraising for this project has been going on for a few years and within the past year or so the car's shell was moved off-site and is now having significant steel work done. This is being accomplished in part by using components from Queensborough Bridge Railway 601, another "Electromobile," which was scrapped at the Trolley Museum of New York back in March 2009. That car had deteriorated badly but many components were salvaged for the Scranton 505 project.
With this project underway, Electric City Trolley Museum has the distinction of owning two Scranton streetcars that are being restored at the same time. Scranton 324, a modernized 1903 Brill car, has also seen a remarkable transformation from a tired carbody and last I heard was at the point of having interior and mechanical work done.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Mystery MUs in Maryland
For today I've got a couple of mystery cars. There's a pair of Reading MU cars stored on a siding on the south side of Chestertown, Maryland, a small town on the eastern shore due practically straight east from Baltimore across Chesapeake Bay. The cars are located on an ex-Pennsy branch next to what looks like an old grain warehouse.
Unfortunately I don't have any car numbers on these two. They appear to have had air conditioners mounted in them, suggesting that they *might* be more refugees from the ill-fated motel in Pennsylvania, but I'm not certain of that. But I read somewhere online that one of these two is the only surviving motor car of a sub-series of Reading motor-trailer sets. That suggests it has Commonwealth trucks and has (or had) four motors rather than the Taylor trucks and two motors of the majority of the Reading MU fleet. This photo supports that claim - but I still don't have car numbers nor, for that matter, do I know who owns these cars. Help!
2008 photo from Google Maps
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Muni F-Line fleet rebuild update
A new post on the Market Street Railway Association site has information on the current state of the latest Muni rebuilding program. This current contract is with Brookville Equipment in Pennsylvania, which did extensive work on the 11 PCC cars acquired from Newark a few years back. Now Brookville is overhauling the "original" (at least, original preservation era) F-Line fleet of PCC cars that was put into service back in 1995.
According to the post, cars 1056 and 1051 have completed their overhaul and been returned to San Francisco while cars 1055, 1059, 1060, 1062, and 1063 are currently out east being rebuilt. Both cars completed thus far have remained in their previous liveries, though car 1051 has been newly dedicated to the late Harvey Milk as well.
One thing I'm not sure of is how extensive this rebuilding is: whether the cars overhauled have received new or different motors and control or whether their original equipment has been refurbished. For the moment, the mechanical info listed for these cars in PNAERC has remained unchanged.
According to the post, cars 1056 and 1051 have completed their overhaul and been returned to San Francisco while cars 1055, 1059, 1060, 1062, and 1063 are currently out east being rebuilt. Both cars completed thus far have remained in their previous liveries, though car 1051 has been newly dedicated to the late Harvey Milk as well.
One thing I'm not sure of is how extensive this rebuilding is: whether the cars overhauled have received new or different motors and control or whether their original equipment has been refurbished. For the moment, the mechanical info listed for these cars in PNAERC has remained unchanged.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Lafayette Birney preserved
Today's update to the database is an addition: the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville has added the body of a Birney from Lafayette, Indiana to its collection. Right now it's stored tarped on the museum's property. The car's number is unknown, unfortunately, but Lafayette only owned two groups of Birneys and both were built by Brill in 1922 - so at least this car's history can be narrowed down pretty closely.
One thing I'm not sure of is exactly when ITM acquired this car. It was apparently just in the last couple of years and may have been as recently as earlier this year. It's interesting that the museum acquired it at all; ITM hasn't operated any electric cars since the late 1990s and there hasn't been much restoration work done on electric equipment at the museum in some 15 years. But the acquisition of this car, which would obviously be a very expensive and involved restoration project, suggests that ITM management has not given up on the goal of preserving Indiana's traction history.
One thing I'm not sure of is exactly when ITM acquired this car. It was apparently just in the last couple of years and may have been as recently as earlier this year. It's interesting that the museum acquired it at all; ITM hasn't operated any electric cars since the late 1990s and there hasn't been much restoration work done on electric equipment at the museum in some 15 years. But the acquisition of this car, which would obviously be a very expensive and involved restoration project, suggests that ITM management has not given up on the goal of preserving Indiana's traction history.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
MU car at Carthage Knightstown & Shirley sold
Today's news comes from Robert Macdowell of the Southern Michigan Railroad, a diesel-hauled tourist line in rural southeast Michigan which already owns a pair of South Shore interurban cars. Penn Central car 1291 (former New York Central 4331, built by Standard Steel in 1929) has been acquired by the SMRR from the Carthage Knightstown & Shirley. The CK&S, which curtailed operations a couple of years ago I believe, is a small diesel-hauled tourist line in east-central Indiana.
Car 1291 is really pretty historic. The NYC had a sizable fleet of MU cars that ran north from Grand Central Terminal starting in the first decade of the 20th century. None of the first generation cars was preserved but three 1920s-era heavyweight cars were saved. However the other two, currently stored on the Toledo Lake Erie & Western in northeastern Ohio, had all of their electric equipment stripped off. Of the pre-lightweight-era NYC MU fleet, only car 1291 is complete and original. The Southern Michigan is aware of its historical value and, judging by the relatively intact state in which their South Shore cars have been kept, it's likely that car 1291 will remain an intact artifact.
Car 1291 is really pretty historic. The NYC had a sizable fleet of MU cars that ran north from Grand Central Terminal starting in the first decade of the 20th century. None of the first generation cars was preserved but three 1920s-era heavyweight cars were saved. However the other two, currently stored on the Toledo Lake Erie & Western in northeastern Ohio, had all of their electric equipment stripped off. Of the pre-lightweight-era NYC MU fleet, only car 1291 is complete and original. The Southern Michigan is aware of its historical value and, judging by the relatively intact state in which their South Shore cars have been kept, it's likely that car 1291 will remain an intact artifact.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Pullman order numbers
A website I'd never visited before was pointed out to me today: www.ericsrailroadcarhistory.com, which along with quite a bit of astonishingly detailed freight and passenger car history articles, includes - as of October - a Pullman passenger car order list starting in 1912. This is a fascinating document, as it includes all electric passenger cars built by Pullman during that period as well as mainline passenger cars. I've used it to go through and add order numbers, where they were missing, to the PNAERC list. I also discovered that I had mistakenly listed a number of Pullman-built Lackawanna MU cars as having been built in 1920 when in fact they were part of the 1917 batch of "high roof" cars.
So this increases the number of car builders for whom I've come across relatively complete order lists. A gold mine for this type of information is streetcars.telcen.com, Harold Cox's site, which features order lists for ACF, American, Brill, CCF, Cincinnati, Kuhlman, and Laconia among others. An order list for St. Louis Car Company has also been published. However there are still several prominent builders - including McGuire-Cummings, Ottawa, Stephenson, and Wason - for which I've never seen an order list. Anyone know of one in print for these companies?
So this increases the number of car builders for whom I've come across relatively complete order lists. A gold mine for this type of information is streetcars.telcen.com, Harold Cox's site, which features order lists for ACF, American, Brill, CCF, Cincinnati, Kuhlman, and Laconia among others. An order list for St. Louis Car Company has also been published. However there are still several prominent builders - including McGuire-Cummings, Ottawa, Stephenson, and Wason - for which I've never seen an order list. Anyone know of one in print for these companies?
Thursday, November 10, 2016
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.
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