Just to set the record straight, the Magee Transportation Museum was located along Fishing Creek, about 5 miles from its confluence with the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. Fishing Creek drains a large porton of northern Columbia and southern Sullivan counties and carried a huge volume of flood waters from Agnes rains. Several years later, the museum site was again flooded by runoff from Hurricane Heloise, and localized heavy rains even later inundated the property several times as more and more development and paving in the area led to more runoff.

Wayne,

Thanks for being the nit-picker that I was going to be, but forgot about while reading the other posts.

As I recall, Columbia County lost several covered bridges in the '72 Flood (as it's universally called up there, more so than "Agnes" or whatnot), and I recall that at least some of the ruins of one of the bridges ended up on the Magee Museum flats........

If anyone has photos of 505 during these moves or subsequent storage prior to stripping at Rockhill, please post.

The TMNY collection has one photo of 505 on 9/10/55 being moved and two in 3/65 at Magee, but they haven't been scanned yet.

This webpage:

http://railcitymuseum.com/RAI_CITY_v_11 ... mpany.html

...has two photos of 505 enroute to Rail City.

/s/ Larry

Pity about the sand car being destroyed, it would have been a very early 1900s car.

The photo above of 505 at Rockhill is just about what it looked like when it finally arrived at Rockhill. One end of the car had been removed at Bloomsburg, and the other end was subsequently removed to enable its movement by road from its storage site in Lewistown to Rockhill. The parts (seats, interior panels, controllers, etc.) were stored in a couple of EBT boxcars from the time they arrived from Bloomsburg until their removal to Scranton. The late Edward S. Miller of Pittston took many photos of 505 in Scranton, at Rail City and at Bloomsburg. His Bloomsburg photos were to document the car's disassembly and aid in its restoration.

By the way, a third Scranton car did make it to Rail City. I can't quite recall its number, but it was a tiny 4-wheel line car. I have seen photos of it in the company of 505 and 107 at Rail City, but I do not know its ultimate fate.

Did either car body end survive? Or were they toast as well? Does the ECTM/A have copies of the Ed Miller disassembly photos?

Judging by the activity on this thread, I'm going to say that there may be more fondness out there for 505 than I would have previously thought. So what about it then?

In terms of what it would take to actually see this car restored, I suppose the best course of action would be to raise enough funding to have a new shell constructed, through Gomanco or a similar company, which could then be shipped back to ECTM for assembly.

Nothing against the ECTM shop, there's only so much manpower to go around. You have to factor in maintenance of both operable and static equipment plus other ongoing projects - nobody needs a basket case, especially with the work load they already have. A fresh car body with a boxcar's worth of parts waiting to be installed though, now that's a different story.

What would a new shell cost for a 1929 Osgood Bradley Electromobile? 300k? How likely would ECTM be to qualify for grants given the extensive rebuilding and subsequent loss of originality involved here?

Whatever the case, it never hurts to raise awareness, and I thank you for your posts.

In regards to the sand car, the Rohrbeck book lists road numbers 1-4. These were converted from passenger cars around 1914, and drawn from the #230-239 Stephensons and #220-229 Americans, all originally built in 1904.

The work car that poster Laepple describes could be company built line car #2025 pictured on page 82 of the Rohrbeck book.

Any further info on the line car would be greatly appreciated.

On the website Dr Groman's son maintains on Rail City he mentions a third Scranton car, an m.o.w. vehicle but says it was vandalized in Scranton and never moved to the museum.

Is it possible the picture you saw of all three together was shot in Scranton?

I'd say there is a lot of love for #505 but until the ECTM came onto the scene, the interest was unfocused.

Rob

The third car that the Rail City site mentions was a sand car, which I've described above.

From what I've been reading on here it would seem to me that poster Laepple can tell a line car from a sand car, and by his description I believe it may be car 2025 which was a small, company-built four wheeled work car which was still around towards the end of the trolley portion of Scranton Transit.

I suppose we will have to wait to see the Rail City photos to know for sure.

As I recall the photo, taken by Ed Miller, it was an overhead view with 505 and the little line car sitting perpendicular to each other. Perhaps it was taken from the observation platform atop the water tank at Rail City. I wonder if the line car replaced the burned sand car? I may have a print of that photo somewhere around here -- I'll have to root around a little. I don't have a scanner, however.

There seems to be more left of this car than of Charlotte car 85 when its remains were removed from the shack built around it. I don't have any images available to share in electronic format, we're talking about 25 years ago when Ektachrome was king. I have no doubt it will eventually be a showpiece in its hometown just as 85 has been in Charlotte. Finding useable hardware for the mechanicals is the hardest part of the job.

dave

Here's a picture of 505 taken on 3/20/65:

I can't believe how rough 505 looked in 1965. I don't think ST was really keeping up their equipment towards the end though, there are horror stores about the busses. I believe these were the last 'new' cars bought for the line, and that was 1929. Everything else was gradually phased out.

I've heard that ST had a crazy paint shop - they would paint the cars over and over, spray and respray, try different designs. I'm guessing this was more a requirement to hide the rust on the older cars.

They really got every last mile out of them and then some.

----

I'll try to get a photo up tonight of the work car in the Rohrbeck book. I was going to post it last night but I'm having an issue with my scanner software.

Being a home built car, it's pretty unique, so I would suspect that it should be easy to identify even in the overhead shots of 505 as mentioned.