I know that several years ago (I would appreciate knowing an exact date) the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California experienced a bad prairie fire which destroyed several pieces of equipment. Does anyone have a complete roster of the cars that were destroyed? I need to know what cars were destroyed so that I can officially take them off of OERM's roster. There are quite a few cars that used to be on their roster and aren't any more; while some of these were probably scrapped or sold off, some undoubtedly succumbed to the flames.

The following cars were burned at Orange Empire Ry Museum by fire July 6, 1992;

PE 1440 box motor body
PE 1498 box motor bocy on trucks (ex 881)
PE 0038 wood box car body
SDERy 88 city car body (San Diego Elec.)
SDERy 93 city car body
SP 33438 wood box car blt 1902
SP 70414 wood box car blt 1901
SP 73173 wood stock car 1918
ATSF ??? part of wood caboose body

The fire also damaged several motor vehicles including tower trucks and a former Chicago double deck bus.

There are more than 200 rail cars, locomotives, streetcars at Perris at this time. There have been a few disposals over the years.

Brian Norden
member OERM board of directors

bnorden@gateway.net