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Surviving Detroit Streetcars (Workcars?)
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Author:  Wesley Paulson [ Fri Jul 30, 2004 9:37 am ]
Post subject:  Surviving Detroit Streetcars (Workcars?)
An earlier thread discusses the surviving cars from Detroit Street Railways: Peter Witts at IRM and ORM, and the PCC at MTM in Michigan.

I recall an old article in about two Detroit workcars in Traction and Models. And Ben Minnich's American Chicken Coop website notes two possible survivors still in Detroit (NOT the narrow gauge heritage line). Are these work cars still around?

Thanks.

Wesley

American Chicken Coops Site
Author:  Aarne H. Frobom [ Fri Jul 30, 2004 2:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Surviving Detroit Work Cars
The current newsletter of the Michigan Transit Museum reports on the status of these two cars. I don't have this publication handy as I write this, but the remains of these cars are for the moment still at the ex-DSR yard and powerhouse where they've lain since the 1970's. These cars were operable by means of an extension cord in the mid-1970's, on a spur that once carried coal hoppers to the powerhouse, but since then the box-motor car (No. 1381?) has been torched by vandals and only the frame and trucks are evident in newsletter photos. The other car is a work flat with a small cab at one end. At least one of these is ex Detroit United Railways, and I believe both were reconstructed from other car types.

The newsletter says that individual Museum members are working to remove the trucks and frames before the DSR yard is redeveloped. It sounds like a move is imminent, but doesn't say where the parts will be moved to.

- Aarne Frobom
Author:  Tom Cornillie [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 12:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Surviving Detroit Work Cars
What is the address of this DSR yard and powerhouse? I would like to know it to find Sanborn maps and aerial photos of the location.

> I don't have this
> publication handy as I write this, but the
> remains of these cars are for the moment
> still at the ex-DSR yard and powerhouse
> where they've lain since the 1970's.

altoonaroundhouse@umich.edu
Author:  TJ Gaffney [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Help save the Surviving Detroit Work Cars! *PIC*
> What is the address of this DSR yard and
> powerhouse? I would like to know it to find
> Sanborn maps and aerial photos of the
> location.

Serious effort by the Michigan Transit Museum is being made to get the cars out of Shoemaker as we speak. The area is roughly at the intersection of Shoemaker and St. Jean in Detroit. By the way, the car numbers are:

#7284 - Last Surviving Detroit United Railways Heritage vehichle (unless there is a rotting carbody out there somewhere?!). Was sold to the
DSR in 1922, and was rebuilt into a an electirc flat motor, as she is today.

#1981 - Originally a Steeple-Cab electric, it was rebuilt sometime in her career into a boxcab electric, which is how her career ended.

There is also a former Hygrade's Reefer car there that was to be used as a storage car had the proposed Shoemaker operation happened. Instead, MTM moved to Selfridge, and the rest, as they say is history. I would HIGHLY suggest contacting either Tim Backhurst or Gary Michaels at Michigan Transit Museum for Further info. They can use the help!

Both cars are in bad shape, highly vandalized (were talking downtown Detroit, people) and would be complete rebuilds from the floor up, but represent some of the last survivng examples (with the exception of the DSR Peter Witts at ORM and IRM, and the GHMMR interurban at Coopersville & Marne) of Michigan traction heritage.

If you get a chance, get out to take a trip with them, or better yet, volunteer. MTM crack volunteer group does "more with less" better than any group I know, and have done it so long that its second nature to them. Kudos to them for trying to get this done.

TJG


Michigan Transit Museum
Image
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org
Author:  Frank Hicks [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Help save the Surviving Detroit Work Cars! *PIC*
I didn't know there was an effort being made to save these cars - I had heard they were pretty far gone. It's great news! Is MTM hoping to move them to Selfridge soon? Also, might some photos of these cars be posted online at some point soon?

DUR #7284 would actually be one of two remaining DUR heritage cars, both work cars. The other is #7763 at the Ohio Railway Museum (shown below in better days; it's now in dead storage along with everything else at ORM).

Where preserved Michigan traction is concerned, yours is a pretty complete list. The only other car I know much about is Michigan Electric #28 at IRM; there's also a pair of Grand Rapids streetcars in private hands near Johnstown and an open car at a historical society in the UP, but I haven't been able to find much info about those.

Frank Hicks

Image
F-Hicks@wiu.edu
Author:  Trainlawyer [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Michigan interurbans
I believe former Cleveland RTA work car, OX, also at the Ohio Railway Museum, is a former Grand Rapids, Holland & Chicago car.
GME

> Where preserved Michigan traction is
> concerned, yours is a pretty complete list.
> The only other car I know much about is
> Michigan Electric #28 at IRM; there's also a
> pair of Grand Rapids streetcars in private
> hands near Johnstown and an open car at a
> historical society in the UP, but I haven't
> been able to find much info about those.

> Frank Hicks


gmedwardsesq@juno.co
Author:  TJ Gaffney [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 8:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans *PIC*
> I believe former Cleveland RTA work car, OX,
> also at the Ohio Railway Museum, is a former
> Grand Rapids, Holland & Chicago car.
> GME

Really? That is most definitely a new one for me, and great to hear. I know a couple of wood ex-DUR cars were sold of in the lower Thumb/ eastern Michigan area for cabins, but rotted to the point of destruction circa 1955/ 56 or so.

What's really sad for me is a picture we have at our museum of the first Horse car of the 1879 William Pitt Edison (Thomas Edison's brother) operation of the predecessor to this line, taken in 1931, and it BEAUTIFUL shape. Sadly, it did not survive World War II, having been burned/ sold for scrap metal drives. Not to knock the bullets that knocked of Nazis that were made for it, but sad none the less.

@#sigh@#


Michigan Transit Museum
Image
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org
Author:  Wesley Paulson [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 9:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans *PIC*
OX is at Trolleyville! See photo below via Frank Hick's database.


Image
Author:  Frank Hicks [ Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans
> OX is at Trolleyville! See photo below via
> Frank Hick's database.

I'd forgotten about that thing! Now that I think of it, IRM has another Michigan interurban car - a center-door freight trailer off Michigan Railways, later Lake Shore Electric (it's currently being restored as LSE #810).

Frank Hicks

F-Hicks@wiu.edu
Author:  Michael E. Allen [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans
I have a photograph in my office of OX in its GRH&C days being loaded with casks of fruit from my grandfather's farm at North Street in Saugatuck. The fruit was bound for Holland and a steamer to Chicago. There are at least two steam freight cars in tow and an interurban trailer.

M.E. Allen


ptrmgtsvc@earthlink.net
Author:  Art Schwartz [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 3:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans
You can add Philadephia & Western box motor 402, at the Rockhill Trolley Museum. It is formerly Eastern Michigan 2010


artschwartz@sprintmail.com
Author:  Aarne H. Frobom [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 9:44 am ]
Post subject:  GRH&C station flattened
A long-time survivor of the Saugatuck interurban line was destroyed recently without any acknowledgment of its demolition. The distinctive corner station with tower at 32nd Street and 64th Avenue in Holland (Virginia Park?) spent many decades as a gas station, but was demolished recently. The conical tower had been remade to look like a Dutch windmill, and after the platform roof was removed the building looked exactly like a kitschy 1930's "roadside vernacular" gas station. The gas pumps in front of the angled building were on the track alignment, 45 degrees to the intersecting streets. No one would know it had been an interurban station unless they knew its history.

- Aarne Frobom
Author:  Ted Miles [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan Transpoortation Museum
Folks,

Can you tell us more about the Michigan Transportation Museum? I have not been there and I thought it was a Mainline Railroad museum.

Is the interest in Traction something new for them?

Ted Miles


ted_miles@nps.gov
Author:  Michael E. Allen [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 12:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan interurbans
Aarne,
That is a shame. The "Windmill Gas Station" was a childhood landmark of mine. I forwarded your post to the lady who is managing the Felt Estate Restoration down the road in Laketown as she also has an interest in the history of GRH&C and its surviving structures.

I have posted the link to the Felt Estate below for anyone who is interested even though it is moving somewhat off topic. The primary rail relevance is that when the house was first planned it was accessible by interurban and when the family finally occupied it the track was gone. The Felts did receive heating coal by rail but it had to be trucked the last several miles.

M.E.Allen

Felt Estate Restoration Project - Home Page
ptrmgtsvc@earthlink.net
Author:  TJ Gaffney [ Fri Aug 20, 2004 2:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Michigan Transpoortation Museum *PIC*
> Folks,

> Can you tell us more about the Michigan
> Transportation Museum? I have not been there
> and I thought it was a Mainline Railroad
> museum.

> Is the interest in Traction something new
> for them?

Ted-

Hardly --- the original interest was in traction, mainly coming from Bill Henning and Ken Schramm Sr., to of the founders. They operate in two locations --- one out of the 1859 Mt. Clemens Station T.A. Edison learned telegraphy --- and the other a tourist operation which operates through the Selfridge Air National Guard Base (and you thought YOU had security issues!)

They have a Detroit PCC, two ex Chicago Els Cars, as well as two South Shore Cars; they did have a North Shore Car, but traded it to East Troy a While back for the South Shore, which better suited their needs.

There tourist consists of the above cars, an ex-GTW wood caboose, and an S-1, which hauls thr train. They also have an ex- LS & MS wood caboose (tough shape), and some other cars of varying heritages.

There located just South of us on I-94, about 1/2 hour 45 minutes away, our down old M-25.

TJG

> Ted Miles


Michigan Transit Museum
Image
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org
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