Folks,

I am always in favor of good news. The Wheeling 639 came to the Seashore Trolley Museum over twenty years ago as a completely stripped car body. It is a one man/two man street car that features the special "curve side " design that made a big splash in the street railway industry when the car was new.

The Townhouse Shop has done a complete restoration of the car taking it back to the earlier two man operation and replacing all the complicated safety and air brake equipment on the car.

I am just a simple member there but I think that they deserve some appreciation for a lot of good work. As one project draws to a close others are ready to go.

There are a number of C&LE high speed Interurbans built in 1930, around the museums. However the company also had built a number of box motors to handle the freight side of the business.

I think this aspect of Interurban railway operations is under developed at the traction museums. I am glad to see that this freight motor C&LE #640 is now started on the long road back. They have a lot of steel work and wood work ahead of them but the folks at STM can do it all!

Take a look at the Seashore web site for additional news of interest. I think you will find much of interest. They are 70 years old this summer.

Ted Miles

I was thinking of coming down this weekend to get some reference photos for work I'm doing at the SFTM on car #10, any chance the redbirds will be out?

I believe Searshore has had the Wheeling body for a lot longer. I was flipping through some old Trains Magazine issues from the 1960s the other day, and noticed a letter to the editor in a 1968 edition discussing Seashore's acquisition of the car.

The carbody had been used as a doctor's office in Ohio before acquisition.

What aided the restoration of this car, was the use of Standard trucks, as opposed to the typical Cincinnati arch bar trucks found under this type of car. Spare Standard trucks are/were more readily available.

Nice car, glad to see the work completed.

Wilksnd,

You are quite right the working parts of the car came from a Boston Type Five that I think went to pieces down in Connecticut some place. The trucks ar standard 0-50 which as you say are much more common then the Cincinnati trucks.

I am a member so I enjoyed reading in the Dispatch about how the well known air brake expert Dave Garcea at the Orange Empire Railway Museum was involved in designing and building the air brake system under the car.He even went back to the Townhouse Shop once or twice to help turn wrenches. He also had parts sent to the air shop down at OERM in Southern california.

Ted Miles