New Orleans broad gauge cars had double truck mounting holes as there were both standard and broad gauge cars on different lines. The Carrollton Car House had dual gauge track to accommodate either car. Sam McAfee, retired Master Mechanic/Superintendent, told me that the last car lines, Canal & St. Charles were broad gauge so all cars, remaining at the close of the standard gauge lines, were re-gauged to the broad gauge. That is why it is easy to change gauges on the Perly Thomas cars.

When the Riverfront line was in the planning stages, New Orleans went out to all the places that had received a car from the closed lines. The only two that were brought back to New Orleans were from Atlanta and Dallas. We had arranged a swap for the New Orleans car (it had been at Weatherford before the move to Ft. Worth) by swapping two Dallas car bodies for the New Orleans car. The owner of Spaghetti Warehouse had purchased the car from Weatherford with the plan of installing it in Kansas City. The car body and the building there was not a good fit. Bob, the owner of Spagahett Warehouse, and I were on a Historical Preservation Board and I called Bob about the seats, electric gear, etc. and he told me of the problem. Ed Landrum, of Dallas, and I had planned to remove all the excess equipment but, Ed called Bob and arranged the swap of car bodies. The McKinney Avenue sold the car back to New Orleans and we bought the W-2 from Melbourne through Paul Class. The N. O. car was still broad gauge. The Riverfront line was standard gauge and the two N. O. cars were adapted back to standard gauge.

I thought Gomaco ended up with one of the Rio cars, and it was sold to Tampa several years ago, after being tried out in Charlotte? Or is that a Gomaco replica car?

Sice all of the Rio open cars are accounted for, the car that you are thinking of must be a replica. Gomaco did build one as a demonstator. The ony Rio car that I think was ever at Gomaco was the car now in Memphis, for rebuilding. Our car at PTM was bought from the city of Orlando, who bought it for a stillborn downtown trolley line.

Yes, the open car in Tampa was built by Gomaco. There are four Gomaco-built DT open cars I can think of, two at Lowell, the Tampa one and also a gas-driven one at Platte Valley Trolley in Denver which may have been designed for possible conversion to electric, I don't know. Gomaco also built a single-truck semiconvertible as a demonstrator, numbered 1979, and according to their website that ended up in Memphis as well.

The "gas driven one in Denver" is actuallly a full electric car that just happens to have a Cummins/Kato gen set mounted on board to supply the 600 volts. It makes all the proper traction sounds if you can hear them over the roar of the diesel!!
Ira Schreiber
Aurora, CO