The other day I was in Carbarn 1 at OERM, the Los Angeles streetcar barn, and a visitor asked how these cars got here. I said they were trucked because they were 3 foot 6 inch gauge. But many of the Museums standard gauge cars came on their own wheels.

Coincidently, yesterday museum member Ray Ballash asked me to scan the following slide for a future newsletter. He took this neat picture of LAMTA #3100 being moved to Perris during the spring of 1963. Of further coincidence when I answered the visitor's question I was in the "Ray Ballash Carbarn" standing near the same PCC just repainted in the same colors.

Thanks for sharing Ray. Click here.

Good grief, are they hauling it or launching it? I think that photo calls for a caption contest.

Wow, and I thought some of our loads were high!

Steve Hunter

For a photo of the car today see:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=391336

Would the truck and trailer hauling the PCC be considered classic vehicles today?

Which brings up an idea: How crazy would we be to acquire some older equipment like this for moving rail gear? Obviously you wouldn't move a 4-8-4 this way, but there is a lot of other stuff equipment like this could be used for, say all those freight cars at the Navy base in Maryland if the bidding had been different.

And is my memory right, that when the two-foot gauge equipment got moved from Edaville to Portland some years ago, that at least some of the trucks used to move the equipment to Portland were the same trucks used to move the equipment to Edaville back in the late 1940s?

At the very least, this suggests partnerships with classic truck owners would be worth looking at.

Several of the trolley museums I am familiar with have, or at least have had, working relationships with the local chapters of various car-collector organizations. Some are regular meet locations, or hold an annual car/truck show, or several.

Some rail museums do/did the same thing.

And, yes, one particular individual who has done a lot for preservationists does, indeed, use his "vintage" rig when the occasion arises.

The first Sunday in May, for the past few years, has featured the Antique Truck meeting at Orange Empire. Everything from pickups to big rigs will be on display, and most of them get there on their own wheels. Some of the really ancient units come on trailers pulled by trucks that are classics in themselves. The Museum has a pair of White heavy tow trucks that LA Transit Lines used for retrieving disabled streetcars and buses. I still treasure my ride in a 1919 Moreland (built in Los Angeles) down OERM's Broadway.