Troubling news, and seems to confirm the rumors swirling about for much of the last 6 months.

In my mind there are two questions.

First, after a pretty auspicious start, LSE got awfully quiet, awfully fast.
Was there ever any effort, local or otherwise, to find some help for this group ?
From finding a new home and moving the entire collection to having to sell most/all of it off,, seems like at the least that maybe the project got a bit too big-too fast for the folks involved and a cry for help, if it didn't bring assistance at least would have put out notice of problems. Sad ending.

Second, given our current troubled economy, how much of this collection might NOT survive ?


IRM seems the obvious choice for most, if not all, the CA&E cars, but I would guesstimate $35,50K each ? (After sale price, transport, etc) How many could even a powerhouse like IRM afford,, and that's just the start costs, you need to pay for storage, track space, restoration. FRTM in South Elgin would be a great place for the ex-Shaker Hts/ex-AE&FRE lightweight cars (returning them to home rails), but without indoor storage, how long might they last ? The Iowa cars, perhaps to Mt Pleasant ?

The article notes that an auction could happen as soon as July,, not a lot of time to arrange for inspections, financing, etc. (And given the dearth of info from this group to the public,, how many interested parties might not realize it's happening, till it's over ??)

One can only hope for the best, but it seems like as exciting and promising a year for steam as 2009 is turning out to be, it could be an equally disastrous year for midwest traction :-(

Well, there is some logic to their action. They want to cash in most of the collection and save one or two pieces for restoration and operation on the Cleveland RTA.

The article mentions this was going to operate in the "Flats" district. Our relatives just came from a visit to Cleveland, and apparently the Flats is a failed tourism destination. They were warned by hotel staff not to visit the Flats, due to crime, etc.

If the collection is to be broken up; then the Seashore Trolley Museum should find a home for the Cleveland Railways Class 1200 trailer that is in the collection.

STM Has just finished restoring a 1200 class motor car and they should have the trailer if it does not have a home in Cleveland!

Ted Miles, a long time Seashore Member

They would be very foolish to fast-track an auction.

The marketplace for historic streetcars is very small. 30 cars will absolutely glut the market. It can't absorb that many in an orderly way. We who are able to buy streetcars just aren't sitting on piles of cash. We only have so much money, no matter how good the cars are. We can get a lot more, but fundraising takes many months.

And much of that limited money must necessarily go to transportation. Transport money cannot go to the seller.

I'd be like driving an ice cream truck to an elementary school, and trying to sell the whole truckload in one day. Kids can't eat that much, and you can't collect more money than the kids have in their pockets. Your best bet is either come back every day for a week, the kids will be ready for you on Tuesday! Or offer financing (and insulated doggie bags.) The kids will haul the extra ice cream home and pay you later (or not... but at least you got the money in their pockets, and that's all there was to get.)

I think the best strategy for liquidating this collection is to sell about 5 cars a year. Leave 10 months from announcement of sale to closing. That would allow decision making, fundraising etc.

If they must liquidate fast, then what's the goal? To see the cars saved? Then give them away - let the museums put all their precious cash toward movement costs. To make as much money as possible? Then do the same - let the museums direct their cash toward movement costs, and offer financing on the purchase price of the cars. If the seller needs the cash right away then sell the notes. It's unlikely that a museum would default, but if they do it'll take awhile, by which time the streetcar market will have recovered and the repo will sell OK.

Bob:

Your above analysis is quite good. With one or two exceptions, no museum (except maybe those who have a DOWT stash of money) has the ability to get into a bidding war.

I like your idea of saving the collection by negotiating to find a home for the items. I think the goal should be to preserve as much of the collection as possible. This is the easy part. I think one can find homes for each piece.

What we don't yet know are answers to the following questions:
1) How much money do the owners of the equipment need to pay off the debts they have?
2) Is there a deadline to remove the rolling stock and other "stuff" from the lakeside warehouse?
3) Are the current owners dedicated to preserving the equipment even if it means negotiating deals with individual museums with some kind of payment plan with the various museums, as you suggest.

In my estimation, the potential homes for the various pieces are more-or-less evident. It's more a matter of whether the current owners are ready & willing to set about a rational plan to disburse the collection wherein all players are winners and the collection is preserved.

Thanks!

My understanding is that there is a fairly short time limit for getting the cars out of their present homes. In addition to the cars at the pier, the CA&E cars and one box motor are stored by RTA under Terminal Tower. Part of the problem is that the organization is required to provide liability insurance for the otherwise free storage, using money that they do not have.

The analyses by Robert & Jim are very much to the point. However, I suspect that only about half the collection will end up finding good homes. For example, the PCC cars are not in much demand, as there are only 387 of them around, by Frank Hicks' list. Loss of 5 would not be a great tragedy. There are other cars in the collection that have only limited regional appeal. In many cases, the most likely purchaser already has an example of the car. Even IRM would only need to get 3 of the 8 CA&E cars to fill out their collection without duplication.

The purchase price is probably the least obstacle to aquisition of these cars. Transportation costs will be substantial. Space to house the cars is the largest potential cost. I know that at least one organization had some heated discussion as to what would be evicted if any of these cars were to be acquired. I doubt that a payment plan would be of much assistance when the other costs are so large.

Personally, I would rather see some of the collection scrapped for parts than end up in a "rust in peace" situation.

Tractioneers:

I'm sure the wheels in Bill Wall's head are already turning at about 100 miles per hour!

Silk Road is also probably doing some preliminary planning (and licking their chops?).

To be realistic about this whole issue, I think Art has a good idea. What can't be disposed of can at least be donated/sold for the parts in the car. The PCC cars especially come to mind as Art points out. One or two of the PCC are ex-TCRT but we (Minn. Streetcar Museum) certainly don't need or want them.

A rambling thought crossed my old geezer mind. Should a museum perhaps volunteer to be a "broker" to hold the cars pending eventual sale or other disposition (i.e., donation) or at a minimum be a place to store the cars while a permanent disposition can develop over a longer period of time? IRM has the room but this idea begs the question, who pays to move them from Cleveland to IRM? Maybe on a TOFC flatcar?

Film at ten?

Thanks!

To use a word I suggested in a post earlier this month, we may be in a situation where triage is a sad necessity. "So many trolley cars, so little time (and money)". As cars are run on demonstration railways, and moving and electrical parts wear out or suffer catastrophic failure, spare parts become vital supplies, the traction equivalent of heart transplants or bone grafts. We are getting to the point where all but the oldest streetcars, interurbans and freight motors have spent more time in museums than in revenue service.

I have a better idea. Well, not actually better, but a Plan C or whatever:

Drag them out, and add them to the field full of PCC/etc. junkers over in eastern Ohio. Nobody will notice them except us, and then we'll just switcheroo again once that guy dies or whatever. Or maybe hide them in the back 40 at Seashore, since they seem to think they're obligated to keep everything they have and get whether or not it runs (I've heard a few stories similar to DL&W 952/StLMOT about specific pieces at Seashore over the years....).

Okay, yeah, facetious sarcasm, but still.............

Let’s go off on a little different tangent.
In the northern Ohio area(less than 25 miles away) there is a group with a good solid fund raiser. They have a problem of getting volunteers on a regular and predictable manner. As a result of this problem they reach out to other non profits and pay that organization a set fee per member per fund raising session. We are not talking 10 or 20 dollars either.
If the Lake shore electric group could provide 2 to workers twice a week they could raise much more than needed to pay for insurance without a problem. I base this statement on the fact it makes MUCH more than the cost of our insurance and we own 20 miles of track.
Problem solved. You can pay your bills till the climate in Cleveland changes. Cars stay dry and protected no need to split up the collection. Problem solved
To bad the different groups in northern Ohio can’t learn to work together. Much less even talk about it.

Jack is right about the lack of cooperation in the traction community in NE Ohio. It was a real shame that something couldn't have been done initially after Jerry Brookins died to get the collection to the NORM site at Chippawa Lake. They've got the land and potential for a reasonably priced operating museum in the region. I'm not a big traction fan, but I've been marginally interested in what's been going on with this stuff over the years, and I've enjoyed a few club picnics at the old Trolleyville site over the years as well, and probably would again at NORM if it was ever completed. Maybe if everyone involved swallowed hard and decided to cooperate to save the collection, triage and scrapping would not be needed. I've long been fond of the big interurban cars in the collection that IRM covets. Hey, they don't need every one in existance <grin>!

Cleveland could use an attraction like historic trollies to pull together other attractions in the immediate downtown area - like the R&R Hall of Fame. I'm sorry to hear that the Flats have become another failed festival marketplace kind of thing ("The Drew Carey Show" gave it a big shot in the arm several years ago with his "Cleveland Rocks" opening filmed in part there). It's really hard to get anything worthwhile going around here. I'm not sure why, but the community "leaders" keep throwing money at dead-ends like a Medical Mart that is not going to draw the kind of affluent visitors they hope it will. They need to get some nuts-and-bolts things going here that real people can relate to and work at - like building transit and passenger rail vehicles in soon-to-be-closed auto plants.

You know, the current director of Akron Metro Transit is big on light rail. Those PCC cars in the collection would be just the thing to build a downtown circulator historic trolley line around (hint, hint). The old NOT&L shed in downtown Akron still exists as parking for the Welfare Department (one of the few intact pieces of Akron's RR history).

We at the SFTM are looking for more cars. But really can't afford to bid and or move them :(