In Andrew Young's 1996 book "Veteran & Vintage Transit," which covers the electric railway museums industry in North America, he mentions a proposed heritage-trolley line known as Tahoe Airport Generic Rail. I think the idea with this proposal was that there ought to be some sort of rail passenger service to the Lake Tahoe Airport in South Lake Tahoe, California.

Anyway, the organization that was pushing this idea was supposed to own a large number of Philadelphia PCC streetcars, plus one or two older streetcars' bodies. While it's fairly apparent that the line was never built, does anyone know what became of the TAGR organization and its rolling stock?

> Anyway, the organization that was pushing
> this idea was supposed to own a large number
> of Philadelphia PCC streetcars, plus one or
> two older streetcars' bodies. While it's
> fairly apparent that the line was never
> built, does anyone know what became of the
> TAGR organization and its rolling stock?

I have heard that the PCC cars and the other bodies are still in the Tahoe area.

Brian Norden

bnorden@gateway.net

I believe there was a similar project, using Portugese trolleys, in Aspen Colorado, where the cars sat around for years without any progress. Whatever happened there?

> Brian Norden


bobyar2001@yahoo.com

There was just some new information on the South Lake Tahoe trolleys in the PCCtrolleys discussion area at www.egroups.ca. Apparently, some of the cars have been bought by MSR for possible refurb.

Trolley Museum of New York
n2xjk@ulster.net

> There was just some new information on the
> South Lake Tahoe trolleys in the PCCtrolleys
> discussion area at www.egroups.ca.
> Apparently, some of the cars have been
> bought by MSR for possible refurb.

Uh... what's MSR? And, do you have any more info?

> I believe there was a similar project, using
> Portugese trolleys, in Aspen Colorado, where
> the cars sat around for years without any
> progress. Whatever happened there?

Several weeks ago I was contacted by somebody in Aspen who was working on finding good homes for what was left of those poor cars. Unfortunately, the condition had deteriorated and given the wierd gage and remote location it wasn't an attractive proposition. I tried to get a small group in the southeast to cooperate and share costs to salvage them but it didn't come together. No idea what has happened since.

Dave


irondave@bellsouth.net

> Uh... what's MSR? And, do you have any more
> info?

MSR equals Market Street Railway. This is a group that was (is?) involved with some of the historic trolleys operating on Market Street in San Francisco. Probably someone can provide some additional information about the group and its relationship with the Muni.

It's the same name as the old streetcar operator that was taken over by the city's Municipal Railway back in the mid 1940s.

Brian Norden

bnorden@gateway.net

MSR official site:

http://www.streetcar.org/Welcome.html

Photos of MSR PCC's:

http://www.nycsubway.org/us/sf/pcc_market/index.html

San Francisco Muni site:

http://www.transitinfo.org/Muni/



Market Street Railway official site
bilburns1313@ameritech.net

>Back in the 80s, a man named Gunner Henrioulle purchased, from several sources, about 22 PCC cars. most were ex-St Louis, ex MUNI PCC cars. He also still has 17 or so of these, plus two ex-TTC cars and one San Deigo car. At one time he also had a Sacramento car and a ex-LARY car.

The Market St. Railway (a non profit group) has purchased 4 of his ex MUNI - cars for donation to the MUNI ofr rehabilitation for it's "F" maket st. line.

As for the ASPEn cars, I've spoken with a representative of ASPEN and the cars sounded like they were in aweful shape, and they were looking to perhaps sell them to south america. i forget which city/country.

Hard telling what will become of the fleet of cars in lake Tahoe. Apparently there is talk of using one as a display piece in the sacamento area.

pacifica@dnai.com

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/articl ... 59967/1023

Are there any PCCs left in S. Lake Tahoe?

Sloan

i live in San francisco and ride the f line every chance I get. Market Street volunteers clean the cars, act as Docents- giving directions etc.

They operate the San francisco Street Car Museum which is a store front museum across the street from the Ferry Building. The "F Line" stops right in front of it. The center piece of the exhibit is a six foot long model of a "White Front Car" built by the Apprentices of the Elkton Shops of the Market Street Railway of 1921.

They do restoration on some of the Citie's antique cars at the "Mint Division" out on upper Market Street.

They purchased a Cable Car which was sold out of the system in 1954 and donated it back to the Municipial Railway. The MUNI Shops built new running gear for the car, #52 I think, a California type car. It is run on special occasions.

The MSR was in terms of track miles much larger than the City owned Municipal Railway of 1912. But because of the cities bonding authority it allowed them to buy out the far larger company.

Today the MSR lives on in all the numbered Trolley Bus routes around San Francisco. And the MSR, INC does all it can to encourage the preservation, operation and history of both systems. As mentioned above they bought four double end PCCs back for MUNI to use on the heritage line.

They assisted in the re-purchase of MUNI #162 from the Orange Empire Railway Museum. It will soon be operating again and to think the rails it will run over were not even there when it left the City in 1962.

The have been publishing a very nice newsletter called Inside Track; but I have not see it lately. it may be the victem of a cost cutting measure.

Let me know if you have further questions. and do take a look at their web site as listed above!

Ted Miles

One Aspen car was sent to the Old Pueblo group in Tucson. As of a couple of yeaars ago they have skinned it, rebuilt the car frame using extensive use of epoxy, and were finishing it off as a Douglas Arizona car. The single truck featured swing motion, which they were rebuilding in kind.

The LA car from Lake Tahoe is now in Los Angeles as a static historic display for a office building developer.

Market Railway is a active friends of group for San Francisco Muni's historic operations. The two seem to work well, providing a really good product for San Francisco.

I suspect that San Francisco is now the largest operator of preserved trolleys... With plans to put more into service.

Inside Track is the Market St. Ry. members' newletter. It comes out about four times a year. The MSRy website has a section on joining the group. Even though I live in Southern California, I've been a member for about 25 years now, and many of the members live even further afield.
Regarding the remaining "Tahoe Airport" PCC's--two of the ex-Muni 1016-class cars have been "spliced" back-to-back, making a double-ended PCC. I haven't seen a good photo of this "kitbashing", but I would suspect it looks more like a Pacific Electric PCC than anything else that still exists. The only catch is the PE PCC's were Pullman air-electrics with MU capability, but they are all long gone. Unless "Tahoe Airport" has a 600-volt power supply, there would be no way of determining if the spliced PCC project has reached the "testing" stage. One also wonders how far along the double-end control setup has progressed. My interest in this "PCC's in the mountains" collection was sparked by photos my daughter and her husband brought back from a trip to the Tahoe area many years ago. She was wondering what Muni streetcars were doing up in "them thar hills", and that led me to check out the project.