A bit off-topic, but following up on Randolph's post about restaurants with railroad relics, here's a link to similar instance this time involving a PCC.

Sloan

http://gothamist.com/2008/07/11/trolley.php

The Lancaster, PA trolley coalition (with hopes of putting trolleys in Lancaster) has bought a Septa PCC from NYC. From this link and photo:

http://septawatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/septa-trolley-getting-2nd-life-in.html

It appears to be the same one. But I'm not positive. Not like there's a shortage of SEPTA PCCs...

I wouldn't say that. I think I can go public with the news, since there's a signed contract and one or two of the cars is going to be spotted en route on a trailer.....

Somebody/bodies associated with the Lancaster streetcar project (I'm told personal checks, not government checks, were involved) has purchased three of the SEPTA streetcars purchased by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, ultimately destined for the Lancaster project. I'm not privy to the money involved, but the cars are supposedly en route to Warren, Pennsylvania for rebuild (Brookville?). Included in the contract is the provision that BSM retains free rights to any and all PCC parts deemed surplus.

For those keeping score, Baltimore will retain one Philly snowsweeper (now mostly restored, and running today for the members' crab feast) and one overhead-work-platform PCC to be retained as such for work service. The Friends of the Philadelphia Trolley either retain their being-restored-as-Philly-"Gulf-Oil"-scheme car, or have donated it outright. The former San Diego/El Paso PCC will be kept and modified as a handicapped-accessible car, since there's so little "original fabric" in the gutted-of-seats car. Let's see............ Oh, yeah, one other snowsweeper body makes a great parts-and-firewood source........

If there are so many Philly PCCs, why did Lancaster have to come to the BSM?

Who knows why anyone does anything. There's several PCCs up in Middletown, Rockhill has theirs, San Fransisco, heck Philly is still running them (in rebuild form). Common as dirt? No. Rare? No.

I'll withhold my comments on the whole Trolleys in Lancaster idea. I think the local transit company (red rose) even got rid of their rubber-tired trolley look-alikes. Not enough interest in them.

Congratulations to BSM. Getting rid of the SEPTA PCC's will cetainly improve the appearance of the property.

I suspect that the Lancaster people came to BSM because BSM was willing to deal and the price ended up being right.

Here is an interesting article. Like in Lancaster, a gentleman near Lake Tahoe had visions for light rail in his community. Lancaster seems to be making more progress


http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2007/05/lost_streetcars.html

http://septawatch.blogspot.com/2008/07/curious-story-of-pcc-2739.html

Then again... maybe the brooklyn PCC won't end up in lancaster. I don't know whether this is fact or fiction... just sharing. Be sure to read the comment on the bottom.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/07/the_septa_train.php

Another one with photos.

I have not yet seen/received official confirmation, but sources I trust intimately at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum tell me that the ex-SEPTA PCC in Brooklyn that the Lancaster group had supposedly purchased for $1500 was scrapped over the weekend. At least one photo supposedly on line somewhere. Supposedly there was a massive dispute over who actually owned the car, with one party supposedly owning the car selling it to Lancaster and another supposedly getting the car upon foreclosure on the property on which it sat doing the scrapping.

This one sounds headed for court.

A picture is worth a thousand words:


http://www.gowanuslounge.com/2008/07/11/trolley-car-destructoporn-fourth-ave-septa-car-gets-it/

Not the same as Pacific Electric "Hollywood" cars stacked up on Terminal Island, but still a sad sight. Being in Southern Calif., all I knew about the Brooklyn project (or projects?) was what I read on the Internet, especially John Smatlak's Railway Preservation Resources, but the impression I got was that it was (or they were) a textbook example of how not to build a heritage trolley operation.

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/224564

From the lancaster paper. Also note the comments... not many favorable.

Zugmann,

From my experiences reading the lancaster online and their comments section, there are generally few positive comments about anything. I once posted a positive comment about the Overlook Dog Park there, and was handed my butt. Contrary to those naysayers, the Overlook Dog Park has exceeded its target number of dogs in a little over 2 years (and that was with the dog park only being open for half a year) and continues to grow in popularity and usage. Same goes for the Lancaster Barnstormers and the York Revolution baseball teams. And what did we lose? Urban blight. I don't even remember what the old Reading yard looked like before the Clipper Magazine stadium was built. However, that area of Lancaster is a destination for many now, what with the stadium, the new restaurants and the Arts Hotel.

Specific to the trolleys in Lancaster, the proposed loop of Prince street to the Southern market, back along Queen street (past the new convention center) and out to the Amtrak station makes sense if the target is visitors who are arriving by rail to Lancaster and attending a convention. However, if their plan is to attract folks like you and me to park our cars at outlying parts of the city and use their trolley to get around the city, then more planning and routes are going to be required. But I suppose that will come in time. The price of $.50 per ride seems kind of low, but that would get people to ride once parked downtown. Especially when the price of gas continues spiraling upward.

Mark,

I've been a member of talkback for years, so I know how it is. But come on. Every city has a convention center - and unless it's near something attractive (like Disney World or the beach - the outlets don't count) it will fail just like all the rest. And to base an entire troley line on the small handful of people that will come by train to a convention is idiotic at best.

And to tie this in with preservation: they are competing for the same funds that real operations (some with historic cars) are fighting for. I predict those PCCs will just rust and rot (at brookville or wherever) until the trolley fans run out of money. Then they willbecome soda cans.