Wow! I wonder if the frame and underside is stable or rotted through? Still, removing the side wood and conserving the finish would be a worthwhile effort.

If the roster of equipment I saw on the internet was correct, looks like CSL #1137 is a bit older that the story; built by St. Louis Car in 1903. Might IRM be interested?


Les

I strongly doubt it. IRM already has an identical car, CSL 1374, which was completely restored over the course of maybe 15 years - and it was largely complete (except for seats) when work began. That said, if some other museum needed a Chicago car badly enough, it would be nice to see 1137 preserved somewhere. It's a shame that the body in Wisconsin isn't a member of a CSL type unrepresented in preservation.

As I recall, when the 1374 arrived, it was totally lacking seats, since the last use on the CTA was as a salt spreader. Frank Sirinek found a whole compliment of seat frames in a couple bodies located in... Wisconsin.

Thats all very curious, its not unusual for streetcar bodies to get re-used.

The rumor mill has it here when the St Joe MI line abandoned here some of the streetcar bodies were taken to a camping area near here and turned into cabins. I have seen these small cabin thingies, but never got close to them, if they are still streetcar bodies or just newly built cabins. No clue if they are still there.

Dennis, you're exactly right. A number of the CSL Matchboxes were sold for use as homes in Wisconsin and the seats for the 1374 were dug up from a debris pile, if memory serves, behind one of them. Another body from this series, CSL 1278, was preserved after having seen decades of use as a house and is now at the Union Thresheree Grounds in Symco, Wisconsin. If memory serves I think it was already in Symco back when the IRM crew was gathering parts for the 1374's restoration.

In addition to the photos posted by the news channel on their site (HERE), I have taken the following screen-grabs from the newscast. At least these images will be preserved if the car is not.

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Maybe a city, county or local museum will preserve the car indoors as an example of the kinds of homes people built during other times in our history. Traditional "railroad museums" view cars as restoration projects, so they might consider this car unworthy because of its incompleteness. However, it definitely is worth something as an original artifact with a rich history and story to tell.

By the way, this forum software, PhpBB, has a bug (or deliberate feature?) that results in images being enlarged and pixelated, so the images I posted above are lower resolution than the originals. I know of no work-around to this problem.

The pictures look pretty good to me.

Agree. Even the gong dinger is still under the platform. This could make a decent start to a project, better than some I've done. If it were a car from a southeastern line, we'd be interested.

dave

More info about the car's history as a residence:
http://www.waupacanow.com/index.php/2015/10/02/trolley-car-triggers-memories

I find it hard to believe that no museum has taken an interest in this car as of yet.