Yes it did. As of now (and as far as I know) all requirements from the Lake Shore Electric Railway people have been met by the museum consortium so ably organized by Bill Wall, President of the Shore Line Trolley Museum. This includes the payment to LSE by all of the consortium members.

The next challenge will be a bear--the requirement to move all the rolling stock and the groups of miscellaneous streetcar parts out of the warehouse located on the Lake Erie waterfront hard by the Cleveland Browns stadium. The plan is to have everything removed from this building by December 15th.

Thanks!

The words attributed to Collis P. Huntington come to mind:
We have drawn the elephant. Let us see if we can harness him.

Indeed!

And to re-tell an old joke. This guy jumps off the Empire State Building and, as he passes the 75th floor on the way down, he comments: "So far. So good!"

Thanks!

Not to mention the next challenge. Where do we put it all!

Most museums are always short of space, especially indoor space. I know that both the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and IRM are working to evict cars from carbarns and place them outside under tarps to provide space for the cars from the Brookins collection. I am curious as to the plans that other museums are making for their aquisitions. I think that only the National Capital Trolley Museum has vacant carbarn space available for their cars.

On another point, I suspect that there will be additional sales and scrappings in the near future as a result of the Brookins auction. I know that at least one car, Iowa box motor #100, will be scrapped for parts, and I suspect that at least four other cars will be scrapped for parts or resold.

In addition, I suspect that some cars will, in effect, replace cars presently in museum collections, which will then be sold or scrapped.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

As per Jim's note, the preservation movement owes a huge debt to Bill Wall for pulling this incredibly demanding and complex deal together. I know Bill had many, many late nights on this one.

Gord McOuat
OERHA / Halton County

No, in the world of electric traction, they scrapped the old junk and quit operations.

But before that, they did a lot of modifications and repairs. Key System 352, over its life, saw modifications that added steel sides, arch roof, closed platforms, single compartment, and walkover transeverse seats. They even changed how the window sashes work. And replaced the trucks.

To suggest the railroad wouldn't replace some rotten wood? Of course they would - in a heartbeat.

Art
The Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin is also on the list of museums looking to move pieces about to make indoor storage for their new acquistion(s). They've made a decision to deaccession their Johnstown Traction 362 car, which has occupied an indoor barn storage space for many years. This obviously clears only one spot for FRTM's two new cars, the assumption is that the Fox River car goes in the barn while the CA&E 450 stays outdoors for the immediate future. Not sure if a new home has been identified for the 362 as yet.

An email from FRTM over the weekend suggests things have gone into high gear. They're making trips to work on the spare parts, sort of details for shipping, etc.
IRM is making similar plans, quite an undertaking for all involved when you figure (a) an all volunteer workforce, (b) "real" lives and jobs, (c) normal work shutting down for the operating seasons and winter prep, and (d) the upcoming holidays. The work has in many respects just begun !

According to the same email, the lakeshore dock warehouse site is expected to be emptied by Dec 15th, a mere 51 days from now.

Speaking as an ordinary volunteer operator and not one of the founding members or other insiders, it could have been the only way that he could get to run the special car.

According to the Shoreline report linked above; the museum bid was accepted and the cars will go to new homes.

While I can't say the check is in the mail it must be close!

By the way, on the open cars going to IRM and Little Rock?, the other name for them was "summer cars"

People in 1900 were not dumb! They put the open cars away and rode in something suitable for the season!

If IRM or anybody else wants to do a Christmas season ride for goodness sake use some thing suitable and heated!

Ted Miles

For a Christmas ride through the snow, open cars are very popular. At the Connecticut Trolley Museum, we host our annual Winterfest program. The cars are sent down a Tunnel of Lights. The most popular car is Montreal Observation Car #4. People line up for this car all night. Even when there are available seats on a closed car, people would rather wait for the open car. On especially busy nights, we run Rio Car #1850 which is an open breezer car to help alleviate the crowd on #4. 1850 will also fill up. The entire night there are lines waiting for the open cars whereas the closed cars usually have seats empty.

Branford Electric Railway has had to stop running open cars, partly because the passengers don't want to ride the closed cars if an open is available. Real trolley lines didn't run cars because the public wanted to ride them, they forced the passengers to ride what was convenient for the company to run. We might lose our museum accreditation if we did not operate in a historically correct manner.

If you are saying that Branford has stopped running open cars because people don't want to ride closed cars when an open car is out, that doesn't make sense. First, yes, we are all museums, but we are also attractions. In order to pay the bills, we need to also give people what they want. Otherwise, they will not keep coming back. At CTM, we run both open and closed cars on a given day. This allows for us to give our visitors an experience of both cars. If someone only wants to ride on an open car, then let them ride on an open car.
Open cars were traditionally run in the summer months, and closed in the winter months. However, in New Haven, CT, open cars were run during some colder days as well. The open cars were used to ferry passengers to the football games at Yale Bowl. Football season is during the months leading up to winter, hence, the open cars were run on some colder days, including some days where there was a nice dusting of snow on the ground.

We removed the photo of the open cars being loaded at New Haven Green in the snow drifts for a late November football game because it caused awkward questions. And, yes, the insider members do cite Warehouse Point as an example of a museum in danger of losing its accreditation because it caters to the public's desires instead of trying to remain historically correct. Of course, the other problem with the traditional open car is that it should have a conductor, which means that someone on the crew thinks he gets less time running cars that day.

Warehouse Point still stays historically accurate while catering to the public. There needs to be a balance of both. We are running cars that were historically run in the era in which we are preserving. I could argue that museums are not being historically accurate by operating cars from other areas of the world. If you are in Connecticut you should only operate Connecticut cars. Because we run in a suburban line and not through the city, we should only run interurbans and not city cars. I believe Branford runs Subway cars from time to time on their line. That too is not historically accurate because Subway cars would not have run in such a suburban setting. There can be an argument for anything that is done at a museum not being historically accurate.



Therefore that is proof that open cars ran in the winter weather.

Jim Boylan, you state

"And, yes, the insider members do cite Warehouse Point as an example of a museum in danger of losing its accreditation because it caters to the public's desires instead of trying to remain historically correct."

I think the same could be said of Branford as well then? I believe you have a graveyard express with the haunted isle attraction during halloween and you are adding lights at christmas time. Could not this be argued as catering to the public? Maybe you should cut all of this out as well if you want to make this arguement? I also believe you have an open car leased to an amusement park for rides at the amusement park. Some might argue that this is not the proper care of a historic artifact in a museums collection.

Warehouse Point is not in any danger of loosing its accreditation any more than Branford is. We have added and continue to add educational experiences for our public. We are a demonstration railroad that chooses to run many different car types to give the public an educational experience of many types of cars rather than having most of those cars stuck away mounted in barns like trophies. The public will never have a chance to learn from the experience if we only run one car a day.