Last month I spotted a PCC car on a flat bed at the I-95 rest area near RT 896. A couple of guys on this board figured out the details.This morning, at the same rest area there was wooden traction car body on a flat bed. I didn't see any poles or pans and the car seemed in pretty rough shape. It also seemed to be a work car of some type.Who can shed some light?Alan LevyWilm, DE

Without a photo or other details, I can say that the odds are perhaps 99% that the traction body in question is the "parts source" snow sweeper en route from Philadelphia to Baltimore for delivery to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. The BSM has already taken delivery of two Philly PCC's (one donated by Friends of the Philadelphia Trolley, one acquired by a BSM member) and a PCC converted to a overhead-line work car (acquired by a BSM member who once had to do line work, apparently!), and also has yet another Philly PCC that is on location only to swap trucks with the former San Diego/El Paso St. Louis-built PCC that arrived in 2002; the latter Philly car is off to another home after the truck swap.I think the snow sweeper that has been acquired for restoration to operation is coming next week.Why all this? Watch for an upcoming news brief when all the dust settles.

What Mr. Mitchell says would fit what I saw! It had the look of a snow sweeper, although the body kind of looked like a "snow shed"... It will need lots of work, but it is good it will be saved!Thanks!Alan S. Levy

It's being unloaded as I type, next to the former Maryland & Penna. RR freight house along Falls Road in Baltimore.Without casting too much disrespect upon its preservation or acquisition, one member said outright as they positioned the rails to take the car on the pavement, "Basically, we're getting all the metal off the thing--the frames, the axles, the motors, the light brackets..... As for the rest of it, that's the shop's firewood for the winter, provided the vandals don't torch the car for kicks first."The BSM also has the pedestal trucks off the snowsweeper that was destroyed in the National Capital Trolley Museum carbarn blaze. I'm tempted to say they have two sets of snow sweeper trucks, but I'm uncertain whether the other set came off another sweeper or other work car or what.

I hope I can say this without arousing any ill feelings... I'm disappointed that NCTM would deaccession parts of the burned sweeper, when it seems that they could be a basis for a recreation/heavy restoration of the destroyed unit. After seeing what some of the Maine NG restorations have entailed, the trucks and metalwork were about all that was left of the original fabric, I hoped there was a chance of rebuilding one of the burned cars. The pix I have seen of the sweeper, seem to show a fairly straight forward construction of an I beam frame with a wood superstructure. I hope I'm wrong - someone tell me that I am! Mike Stillwell Western VA RR Pres. Society

Sandy,BSM has two pedestal trucks from the sweepers lost in the fire: CTCo 07 (McGuire 1899) and Mt. Vernon 51 (Brill 1905).Wesley

The fire damage was such that we felt the parts unusable for any recreation of a sweeper. Frames were distorted and axles showed signs of exposure to severe heat. Those cars were a total loss.Wesley

Ah, I see. I was under the impression they were using them for, a restoration, but it sounds instead as if they are usable for patterns only. I guess it still just such a heartbreaking loss, as there was little DC transit stuff left before the fire. Any chicken coops or rumors of unsalvaged DC stuff out there that may take the place of some of the destroyed equipment? Thanks, Wes. Mike

Mike -There are no coops that I know of - occasionally someone reports seeing a PCC body "out in the woods". Seashore saved a Jewett body that we passed on about 15 years ago since have a Washington deck-roof type of a later design. There are two Washington McGuire sweepers preserved by other museums, thank goodness, so we saw no need to contemplate a reconstruction.Wesley

There may still be some operable D.C. Transit PCCs in Ft. Worth, Tex. Some of the alterations involved putting an outer skin over the painted metal. Watch out, they also altered at least one longer Boston PCC.

If you're referring (as I think you are) to the Tandy Subway cars, I believe those cars are now gone, with at least one offered post-closure of the line on eBay.

We gave the Tandy fleet a serious look and found that the cars were pretty much exhausted with thin wheel treads, etc., etc. The undersides of the cars were much as the cars appeared when removed from service. You could see where the rear end had been built on to create a double-end car. And trucks, etc. had been swapped around so that there was not much original from Washington to trace an original car. Tandy did an incredible job of keeping that system going, and McKinney Avenue has done wonders with their car. We just couldn't see allocating the resources when funds were (are) needed to look after more original Washington pieces in our collection.Wesley