Well this is about as official as it gets, the expected auction is for all intents and purposes underway. Documents for the auction from LSE/Brookins attached.

Let's be ready with those checkbooks folks, the combination of such a large collection and a short window of opportunity is going to come at a high price.

Are there any pictures of the cars being auctioned?

Try the Preserved Electric Railway Cars list website, maintained by Frank Hicks. There are links to pictures for most of the cars.

The are no "official" pictures of the collection on the internet.
The museum pulled the plug on it's website perhaps 4 months ago.

Having said that, you can see much of the collection of the streetcars and smaller interurbans that were/are stored at the Cleveland lakefront site on sites such as Flickr. Simply search for the usual,, Trolleyville, Lake Shore Electric Museum, etc.
One such search earlier this evening brought me some really interesting photos of what's apparently an abandoned amusement park in Chippewa Lake, Oh (Same person has some LSE photos). Very interesting to see an abandonded roller coaster (as one example) overgrown in the trees and weeds, especially when you consider all the vast concrete and lack of uncontrolled vegetation at a place like Great America (for example)

Back to topic !


The larger, heavier interurban cars, the CA&E woods and steel cars were not stored at this public site but on Cleveland RTA property so photos are not as commonly available.

All of this has generated quite a "buzz" amongst those interested in traction preservation, in particular folks in both the Chicagoland area (9 of the 30 cars are from the Chicago area), and in Iowa (another sizeable chunk of the fleet is rare Iowa equipment). At the same time this same "buzz" has put some museum operations on the defensive.

It's a bit of a double edged sword, due to the bidding process, obviously any museum group wants to/needs to keep any acquistion activities close to the vest in order not to tip their respective hands to the "competition". On the other hand, none of this will come to pass anywhere without a lot of money, which is where the vast majority of us come in.

As was posted elsewhere over the weekend, it simply makes sense to show your interest and support to your local museum group, in particular with a donation.
As the old saying goes,, money talks,, b*****, well you know the rest.

We need to find new homes for these "Orphans of Ohio", where possible I personally think it makes the most sense to bring them back home (wherever that may be, as appropriate). If it comes to it, save them first and deal with who gets what later....

As has been said numerous times over the last week since this became public knowledge and the auction a reality, this is truly a once in a generation opportunity and the bulk of what's in this collection is truly unique and irreplaceable. Our collective support is the difference between having these historic artifacts, or having them lost to become razor blades and car parts.

Bill Wall at Shore Line Trolley Museum has stepped forward to assemble a group bid for the Lake Shore collection on behalf of the railway museum community. Tom Twigge at Halton County was successful with a similar effort in 1996 when TTC sold off the TTC 4600s. Hopefully the same approach can be repeated 13 years later.

Wesley

We visited the LSE collection on the pier in Cleveland on our way to the ARM annual meeting at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. Frank Hicks graciously posted them on the Transit section of NERail.org http://transit.nerail.org/show/?order=byposter&page=6&key=hicksco2 The photos start on train car number 6.

This will give you are idea of what's there. Not many close up detail photos however.

Thanks!

I have one question in all this. Who is going to profit by striping the area of a local treasure? these items go to the highest bidder and everyone here is talking about how much they are going to bring. So who gets the money?
There were/ are other opertunites in this area to keep the collection in northern Ohio, All of these items have spent half or in some cases all of there lifes in this area.To bad no one will even talk about these other options and everyone outside of the area only has one concern, how do we get them.
Ohio, area of great unrealized potential!

Some of these cars ran longer in Cleveland than they did on their original road. So technially, you could say they are home. If you want the cars to stay in the area, Jack, I would strongly recommend you send your donations to Northern Ohio Railway Museum or other local preservation groups. I don't know all the politics of preservation of that part of Ohio, but they look like they have space for some cars out there. Ultimately, the reality of the situation will dictate where the cars go. It may look like a bunch of vultures picking over bones, but one can hope that enough money is raised that th debts are satisfied, not all cars leave the area and the cars that do remain have a sufficient endowment to allow them a long life in the area.

Devil's Advocate here, but if there was an unfilled need for these cars "at home" wouldn't they be filling it now rather than being disposed of after many years of nonuse? For that matter where is there a need for these cars? Their inherent value probably isn't very much at all based on these criteria combined with storage / removal costs.

I think they would make a fine fleet of cars for the proposed streetcar project in Charlotte, but management seems committed to the idea of providing space-age cars rather than nostalgic ones, despite the predominance of the proposed line running through older historic districts. San Francisco seems to have decided what it wants and these aren't them.

Who else could make resuscitating this fleet worthwhile?

dave

I think what will be surprising is who will be a player and who won't. What organizations that are perceived as being strong that won't be able to participate and those that are considered weak that will be able to participate. Bottom line is organizations really need to have both the purchase price and the moving costs in hand before considering joining this auction. I don't expect any wiggle room will be available. The first bill must be paid in 5 calender days (not business days) after notification and the cars have to be moved in the best order that allows the cars to be moved out of there. No group will be able to wait till December 31 to move their car or hold up any other group from moving their car. I figure that there will be about 75 days in which this whole collection will be dispersed. I hope that all the museums can play nice together in the sand box and pull this off.

My understanding is that the entire collection was given to a nonprofit, whose mission was to start up a railway museum around the cars, and this nonprofit had over five years to set up something. Simply put, the critical mass that would be necessary for such a museum to exist failed to coalesce around them. I don't know why.

In hindsight, we are dumbstruck. Why? We've seen this before. Look at the western Virginia preservation community and their "efforts" around the Lost Engines of Roanoke, which also have been at least 5 years being ready to preserve. There are plenty of railfans and resources in the Shenendoah. Just no critical mass of oars in the water rowing in a majority direction.

But do we really care? Is this a tragedy that should have been averted? You really think so? Then STOP. Look around now. What OTHER situations like this are brewing TODAY, that are currently ticking down their own "5 years", while everyone blithely twiddles and procrastinates, just assuming that situation will be allowed to continue forever?

What ever happened to the meter-gauge double decker that was in the Trolleyville collection? I don't see it on the bid list.

Didn't that go back to Britain a few years back in exchange for the Blackpool "boat car"?

I think the short version of what happened here is that Trolleyville was forced to move and find a new home. The new home was basically a pretty ambitious plan to take this otherwise typical mid-sized trolley museum and make it a downtown Cleveland Lakefront attraction.

That in and of itself would be a daunting enough project, but combined with the economic woes of the country the last couple years (and Northern Ohio has been fairly high on the list of those suffering some of the worst), it was just simply too much for the LSE group to bear. In the end, I think they simply ran out of time.

One would assume the clock ticking is also part of the reason for this short timeframe to get the collection auctioned off and moved. Another fiscal year, another extension of lease arrangements/agreements, etc, one would assume they're trying to put an end to their misery as quickly and efficiently as possible and end the bleeding.

As to why there may be so few takers in Ohio for the collection, a quick look at the list may tell the tale,, you have a total of 30 cars, of which only 12 have an Ohio heritage. Of those 12,, 3 are PCC cars (not that hard to acquire), 2 are rapid transit cars (limited interest), 1 is a work car, and 2 are actually 2nd hand trolleys originally from Illinois. You have 9 cars in total that folks in Illinois are no doubt scrambling for,, what's the impetus for someone in Ohio to want them ?

Ultimately I personally would hope this entire tale could be put to print, both as a history to the legacy of the Brookins family ,extended friends and their efforts, and as something of a guide to some of today's harsher economic realities that all museum operations must address to enure continued health.

John summarized the situation very well in his post. In addition, there is the issue of duplication. For example, of the 7 native Cleveland cars in the collection, Northern Ohio Railway Museum already have examples of 6.

The only passenger cars that are unique to the Brookins collection are the 3 CA&E car types that IRM does not already have (I am almost certain that they will get these cars) and the parlor car "Toledo". The only other deck roof Cincinnati car in existence is a body at Seashore. All of the others can be found in other collections. Also, 25% of the collection consists of multiple examples of the same car type. For example, how many organizations would want 4 CA&E 1945 StLouis cars.

John also mentioned the PCC and rapid transit cars as being of limited interest. Actually, only the Toronto PCC is in good enough condition to be of interest to a vintage street railway line, the primary market for PCC's.