San Diego 502 moves to Rio Vista

 

Many thanks to Bill Wulfert, who forwarded me some photos showing the move of San Diego Electric Railway 502 to the Western Railway Museum. I don't have permission to post those photos publicly, so the above shot of the car taken within the last few years is from Railfan & Railroad. This is the culmination of a fundraising effort, largely online I believe, held by WRM over the past year or two to purchase and move this car.

SDER 502 was part of San Diego's first order for PCC cars and was among the earliest orders for PCC cars; of production PCC cars in preservation (say that eight times fast!), only Brooklyn 1001 and Chicago 4021 are from earlier orders, though El Paso 1517 started life as SDER 501 and would have been built alongside 502. A total of 13 cars from this order were preserved, actually, due to many of San Diego's cars finding a second life in El Paso that kept them around for decades after most air-electric PCC cars had gone to scrap.

Car 502 became El Paso 1500 in 1950 and ran in that city into the 1970s, being stored after the system there shut down. In 1986 the car returned home and to the ownership of the San Diego Electric Railway Association. Unfortunately during its time in San Diego it was damaged by fire, and in 1996 the car was sold to Tahoe Valley Lines and moved to northern California. It was owned by TVL until this year. It is the only air-electric PCC cars in the WRM collection, though it does join slightly newer "patent evasion" streamliner Muni 1003 which has many similarities to early PCC cars.

Postcard from Argentina - UPDATED

Many thanks to Stephen Cobb from Ipswich, UK for sending along some photos of electric locomotives preserved by Ferroclub Argentino, a rail preservation organization based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These photos were taken in 2007 and they're some of the better photographs I've seen of these locomotives.

Ferrocarril General Urquiza 950 was built in 1920 by Baldin-Westinghouse. It was part of an order for a company called Central Limones that never actually took delivery of the steeplecabs they ordered. So the locomotives sat around for a couple of years until B-W could find buyers for them. This one was sold to the Pacific Electric in 1923 and became PE 1590. In 1951 it was sold to General Urquiza Railways in Argentina. Unfortunately I have very little idea of when it was retired from service and acquired by Ferroclub.

General Urquiza 951 was built at about the same time as 950 and was also part of the same order intended for Central Limones. Like 950, this locomotive was sold to the PE in 1923, where it became number 1591. It was sold in 1951 alongside 1590 for use in South America.

General Urquiza 952, visible right behind 951 in the above two photographs, has a slightly different history. It was built by B-W in 1927 for Red River Lumber in California. It ran for RRL until 1944, when it was sold to Central California Traction as their number 24. After only a few years, it was sold in 1947 to the Pacific Electric, where it became PE 1592. It barely spent more time with PE and was sold in 1951, after only four years, for use in Argentina.

One intriguing aspect of these locomotives is that I believe all of them have trucks, motors, and even control that was salvaged from ex-PE 1100-series cars. For whatever reason (maybe simply because they had more of them on hand) the General Urquiza Railway seemed to prefer the cast trucks and GE PC control on the 1100s to the Baldwin trucks and WH equipment that came with these locomotives. There's one (at least) ex-1100 still around, General Urquiza 3140 (presumed to be ex-PE 1140), which is on display in a small town some 200 miles from Buenos Aires. Even though it's stripped you might be able to make it mechanically complete using a set of equipment off of one of these steeplecabs.

Thanks again to Stephen for sending in these photos!

UPDATE: Stephen has sent along additional photos and information from Argentina and from his trip there. He writes:

I have attached photos of the other 4 which survive (or did in 2007) one of which is certainly an interesting one to try and work out what it actually is. - #907, #908, #954 and a rusty wreck. 

The biggest problem is the lack of material, either published or available on the internet about railways in Argentina in general. Presumably there are Spanish language books on the subject locally, but they don’t seem to travel very far. There is a listing of Argentine locos that was published in the UK about 20 years ago, but it commands a high price as it is long out of print. I’ve never actually seen a copy of it, though one of the people who was on the 2007 trip had access to one when we returned.

Apart from the F.C.Urquiza that had the PE equipment, there were two other lines in Buenos Aires that operated electric locomotives in the past:

FERROCARRIL OESTE

They operated a line in a tunnel under the city centre to reach the docks area and obtained a couple of Baldwin-Westinghouse boxcabs in the early 1920’s to work freight trains. They were broad gauge locos with 3rd rail and overhead capability. One of these – 2002, the one in the photo – is/was “preserved” somewhere (certainly as late as 1990) in Argentina, but I haven’t found if it still exists. There was a lot of elderly material “stored” that we found on our 2007 trip that most people wouldn’t be aware of unless you actually visited the buildings in question. 

FERROCARRIL CENTRAL DE BUENOS AIRES

This standard gauge operator obtained 5 steeple-cab electric locos from Dick, Kerr, in Preston, UK, in 1907 (#1-#5) and they were used for freight services over the City tramway network. Another 3 were constructed by the Company themselves, presumably using parts supplied from the UK (#6-#8) This article I found online gives more details...

https://buenosaireshistoria.org/juntas/ferrocarriles-en-la-ciudad-los-trenes-por-las-calles/

From information subsequently found after the trip to Argentina in 2007, three of these locos survived in service as late as 1966 – presumably latterly on the F.C.Urquiza lines.

At Lynch, there is a loco numbered #907, which has a rather ungainly boxcab body, and its numbering suggests it is one of this class of electrics, heavily rebuilt.

The local Tramway preservation group (AAT) members have restored another one - #908 - to its original condition and it was, in 2007, on loan to Metrovias in Buenos Aires to shunt Metro cars at their Polvorin depot, which, conveniently, is where they run their heritage tramway trips from on the street-running depot access tracks from the underground A line Metro.

Also at Lynch, though whether it is part of their collection, I don’t know, , was a very decrepit shell of a steeple cab electric. It was the other side of the running lines and by an area of shanty housing, so close inspection was not encouraged!

That may well be the third loco that survived to 1966, again, heavily rebuilt from its original format. I’ve not found any photos of that style body design anywhere online.

THE ODD LOCO....

The other loco at Lynch, #954, is rather more interesting/confusing, depending on your point of view.  It has a body style in line with the PE 951/952 locos, but it does look a bit more “homemade”.

The strange thing is that the 2 Argentine online sites I found that actually mention this loco, claim it is descended from PE #1599 in some form, I.e. the comments on this image..

http://busarg.com.ar/fotogaleria/displayimage.php?album=72&pos=67

There is a Swiss based website that says more or less the same thing (in English) though it rambles off in terms that don’t make much sense!

I found photos of PE #1599 online and apart from being a steeple-cab, the trucks are totally different.

There appears to be a discrepancy between what is recorded in the US as to what the Argentines bought and what they say were bought from the US which doesn’t help!!

I agree with Stephen that if 954 does have any origins with PE 1599, then there's not much original left! It's possible that it got trucks from PE 1100s like a couple of the other locomotives got. -Frank

Piscataway update - corrected

I'd like to extend my thanks to Marc Lipkin of the North Jersey Electric Railway Historical Society for sending along a series of corrections, updates, and photos pertaining to the NJERHS collection of traction equipment from the Garden State. I also want to thank Bill Wall of Branford for submitting some notable corrections to the initial post.

First off, Marc pointed out that some corrections and updates were needed. The PNAERC roster formerly listed Public Service Coordinated Transport ownership of several pieces of equipment going back to the 1910s, when in fact PSCT wasn't formed until 1928. Before then, rail operations were under the auspices of Public Service Railway. So that error has now been fixed. There was another mistake too, though, as I listed all of the Newark Subway equipment going straight from PSCT ownership to New Jersey Transit ownership in 1971. In fact, Marc pointed out that NJT wasn't formed until 1979 and didn't assume ownership of the subway operation until 1980. From 1971 until 1980 the subway was run by Transport of New Jersey, the privately-owned successor company to PSCT. (Matt Nawn has since written in to confirm the 1971-1980 tenure of TNJ as the operator of the subway.) So that's now fixed too.

Then we get into the more "update" type stuff. Marc informed me that a total of eight cars are owned by NJERHS (and not by United Railway Historical Society, an umbrella group that has a hand in coordination but does not hold title to any of these cars). Of these, six are stored in what is now the NJERHS "home base" at the Kinki-Sharyo plant in Piscataway, New Jersey. A seventh, the hulk of snow sweeper 5173, is stored at the old NJERHS site in Phillipsburg, while the eighth, snow sweeper 5246, is now back on home rails on the Newark subway (and is listed under New Jersey Transit, albeit with a notation that it is owned by NJERHS). Of the cars stored in Piscataway, as of last year four were stored inside with two (13 and 250) outside protected by shrink wrap, but due to a recent uptick in Kinki-Sharyo's business three more cars have since been shrink-wrapped and put outside. But Marc kindly sent along photos showing the current condition of the four cars inside at the end of 2019.

PSCT 2651

The pride of the NJERHS fleet is probably PSCT 2651, an archetypal Public Service car built in the company shops in 1917. It is the one car that has been kept indoors in Piscataway and has not been shrink-wrapped.

This car has been the subject of a long, intensive restoration effort, and Marc updated me on its progress. I still had the car listed as a body on trucks but that assessment is far out of date - in fact, it's been moved a short distance under its own power! The car is indeed now fitted with trucks motors, controllers, and it has its interior and roof back.

Marc sent a couple of interior photos taken last year around this time to go with the exterior shots. The car's interior can be seen to be largely complete. It's certainly an austere design, what with the wood slat bowling-alley seating. Pretty much the entire roof was removed and rebuilt as part of the restoration.

For comparison, Marc took these photos in the barn in Phillipsburg back in 2007. At the time car 2651 was on freight car shop trucks and it was missing much of its roof and many of its windows.d

New Jersey Transit 5221

NJT 5221 is a line car and general work car from the Newark subway system. It was built by Russell in 1912 for Public Service Railway. It is complete and in largely the same condition as when it left regular use on the subway.

New Jersey Transit 5223

The most distinctive of the Newark non-revenue fleet is surely NJT 5223, a general utility car that (as you may have surmised) was rebuilt from a streetcar. It started out as PSCT 2683, a 1917 home-built car virtually - or maybe completely - identical to 2651 before most of its body was lopped off in 1953 and it was given its current work car number. The third photo shows 5223 from inside its erstwhile sister car 2651, looking down its deck towards its "cab" at the far end.

PSCT 28

Many thanks to Bill Wall for a couple of corrections on this item! The car pictured in these Marc Lipkin photos is not Newark car 1, as I had supposed, but is actually car 28, which is not owned by NJERHS but rather is still owned by New Jersey Transit. This car was built for Minneapolis in 1949 as TCRT 417 and has been kept on "home rails" in Newark as an historic artifact. Kinki-Sharyo repainted the car as a training exercise.

Bill points out that while the grey is slightly off, it's pretty close, and the visor is not incorrect for this livery. Newark started putting these visors on their cars in 1970 when they still ran for PSCT and it wasn't until the mid-1970s that they started getting painted red/white/blue. This means that, while car 28 isn't the only Newark car preserved in these colors, it's the only one preserved in this late variation of the grey livery with the visor.

Many thanks to Bill, Marc, and NJERHS for sending along all of this information. I always appreciate corrections, like the PSRy>PSNJT>TofNJ>NJT details, and of course I'm very appreciative of status updates on cars like the ones in Piscataway about which not a lot tends to appear online. Thanks, Bill and Marc!

New York Transit Museum virtual ride

Bill Wall sends along an update on the replacement for the usual Christmastime "Nostalgia Train" operations on the New York City subway...

Virtual Holiday Nostalgia Train Debuts TODAY at nytransitmuseum.org!

 

Digital Program  VIRTUAL HOLIDAY NOSTALGIA TRAIN Debuts Sunday, November 29th at 10am on nytransitmuseum.org. Free  Continue the holiday tradition with a virtual step back in time! In our new Virtual Holiday Nostalgia Train experience, you can see our historic 1930s R1/9 cars take a trip from the beginning to the end of the line. Take a virtual seat on our vintage fleet, see behind-the-scenes footage of the historic train at the MTA's 207th Street Yard, and celebrate the magic of the holidays with us.  Video now available at nytransitmuseum.org/holidaysathome.

 

Watch Now

Mystery streetcar in Vicksburg

 

According to a couple of newspaper stories (here and here - the above photo is from the latter), the streetcar shown here was moved this week from its former home ensconced in a hunting club's building and has been set aside for preservation. The trouble is, I know basically nothing at all about the car.

It's from Vicksburg, Mississippi, which makes it the only electric car from that city in preservation. Judging from its appearance it was built either for Vicksburg Light & Traction, which ran the city's streetcars until 1923, or for Mississippi Power & Light, which ran them from 1923 until abandonment in 1939. But not only do I not know what the car's number is, I also don't know who built it or when. I'd say that it's got to be a single-trucker and to me it looks like a car built late-teens/early-1920s but it's not a Birney, suggesting that maybe it wasn't built by one of the Birney builders (American/Brill, St Louis, Cincinnati). Harold Cox's order list for American includes four Birneys bought secondhand by Vicksburg and hilariously numbered 145-175 by tens, but this isn't one of those.

So I need some help. I'd like to add the car to the PNAERC list but I need at least some information on it. For the time being it's evidently been moved to an old car dealership in Vicksburg on Washington Street just south of Belmont, still owned by the Long Lake Hunting Club. Time will tell what will be done with this car.

EDIT: After consulting Alan Lind's book "From Horsecars to Streamliners" it appears that Vicksburg was a repeat St Louis Car Company customer. They ordered five cars, one of which might be this one: two cars in 1913 (numbered 75 and 105), two in 1914 (numbered 115 and 125), and one in 1916 (numbered 135). All are noted as single-truck cars with 21' bodies. If the mystery car is one of these five then that would explain why it's got a Birney arrangement but isn't a Birney, as these would have just predated that design.

UPDATE: Click here for an update on this car. It's still quite the mystery, though!

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.

An orange by any other name...

 

A while back Chris Baldwin pointed out to me that the Orange Empire Railway Museum, which for several years has been slowly transitioning to a new name, had officially "switched over." It took me a while but I finally updated the PNAERC roster. So you'll no longer see Orange Empire listed among owners. It will now be the Southern California Railway Museum.

I've decided just to change the name of the organization (though OERM will still be listed under the "also known as" category in the organization's description). This means that searches for historical information may be slightly confusing. For instance, searching for equipment that is or was owned by SCRM brings up BCER 1225, which is listed as having belonged to SCRM from 1958 to 2005 despite the fact that the organization was known as OERM until the late 2010s and never owned car 1225 while it bore the SCRM name. But then again, OERM was actually known as the Orange Empire Trolley Museum until 1975 and I haven't listed the organization's equipment as all having changed hands at that time either.

When it comes to preservation organizations, I tend to just adopt "dba" name changes rather than creating new owners. Other examples of this are the Rockhill Trolley Museum, which used to be known as Railways to Yesterday, and the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, which used to be the Arden Trolley Museum. Both have just been carried forward with their new names - you can't run a search for equipment formerly owned by the Arden Trolley Museum. One exception to this is the Fox River Trolley Museum, which was known as RELIC until 1984. In that case I've listed those as two separate owners, the reason being that the transition from RELIC (Railway Equipment Leasing and Investment Corporation) to FRTM wasn't just a name change, it was a major organization shift from the for-profit, privately-held RELIC to the nonprofit museum FRTM.