I recently ran accross the Maine Central #411 baggage/express wood car of 1914 at the Railroad Museum of New England.

Laconia Car Works was a major builder of narrow gauge and streetcars up to 1928.

Are there any other preserved standard gauge passenger cars from that builder?

I have good information on their narrow gauge survivors; but how about standard gauge?

Ted Miles

MEC 411 (originally MEC 352) is a Laconia steel car. One part of the car's steel sheet roof had a canvas overlay applied (probably in the 1950s) in an attempt to get a little more life out of the steel roof.

The car was built as a 70-foot car, with a 30-foot RPO apartment, and four doors in the 40-foot baggage section. It was converted to a full baggage car about 1947 and renumbered 411.

There may be at least one teens-era steel Laconia coach extant; it had been an MEC instruction car and came to the Conway Scenic in the 1970s. It may be at Downeast Scenic now.

Laconia built few standard-gage steel cars, and almost none after 1922 or so.

Howard P.

Hi
Here are a few more to add to the list, the equipment is part of the current roster at the Strasburg RR. The railroad has five pieces of equipment build by Laconia Car shops, all the pieces were once owned by the Boston & Maine RR.
Passenger Cars
# 75 Henry K. Long
# 88 Marian
# 99 Valley View
Baggage car # 3214
# 93 Diner Lee E.Benner
All equipment once owned by the B&M RR.
Also, the Laconia Car shops also did build Trolleys.

Seashore Trolley Museum has a number of Laconia trolleys, including Manchester & Nashua St. Ry 38,the second car to join the collection.

You may browse the collection here:
https://collection.trolleymuseum.org/browse.php

Phil Mulligan

I believe that MEC car from Conway is now at the Colebrookdale RR.

I believe Howard P. might be confusing a couple of cars. I don't know much about what the Conway Scenic does or doesn't have, but it is certainly plausible that they have a Laconia product up there. MEC 2001, the former instruction car that was sold by the Conway Scenic to Colebrookdale is a 1914 Pullman, which is indicated by various sources including a photo on rrpicturearchives of the display board Conway had with the car's information.

I haven't been able to find any information about it so I don't know for sure, but I suspect the standard gauge Concord & Montreal RR coach owned by the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes group in Phillips, ME may be a Laconia product.

The attached photo is from 2014.

-Philip Marshall

Terrific car. It has all of the details that a narrow gauge Laconia coach once owned by the EBT possessed. The window and batten trim, the roof shape and the clerestory windows and vents all match the details of EBT #6, even the trucks are similar.
Surprising that the metal hoods over the roof ends survived. Truly a time capsule.


brian b