Hi all,

This question is semi directed towards those affiliated with the National Capitol Trolley Museum in Coleville, Maryland. I hate to awaken bad memories, but after reading about the terrible fire that ravaged the museum's complex in 2003, I must ask if any of you know of any other surviving pieces of equipment that operated on the various trolley companies in Northern Virginia. These include the Washington, Alexandria, & Mount Vernon Railway, the Washington & Old Dominion Railway, the Great Falls & Old Dominion Railway, and the Washington, Arlington, & Falls Church Railway along with their respective successors.

Based on what limited research I have done on the surviving pieces of equipment used by the company, the last operational trolley car owned by one of these companies was snow sweeper WA&MV Ry. #51 which burned in the 2003 fire.

I hate to think that this was the sole surviving car of any of these companies, but I would like some confirmation one way or another.

Thanks in advance,

Nick Jobe
Centreville, VA

P.S. Cars once owned by these companies ended up on other railroads such as Canada's Niagara, St. Catharine's, & Toronto Railway and later the Montreal & Southern Counties Railway. Ex NoVA trolleys also ended up on railways such as the Richmond-Ashland Railway, Sudbury-Copper Cliff Railway, and the Glen Alden Coal Company.

I was also born in 2003 so I never got a chance to see #51.

There is a W&OD steeplecab locomotive in operation at Iowa Traction in Mason City. That is the only other survivor from Northern VA.

http://www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc.pl?detail=677

1504270,
The Western Railway Museum has the Central California Traction Company #7 which is ex Washington Baltimore & Annapolis #7 (J. G. Brill,1929). The Box Motor is the only survivor of both railroads. And it is operated fairly regularly.

All of our equipment is stored in three Car Barns.

Ted Miles, WRM Archives Department

Does not Seashore have a Richmond Birney car?

Richmond is considered "RoVA" ("Rest of Virginia") to the people in NoVa (Northern Virginia--basically anywhere in Va. a VRE train runs or people commute to a Federal bureaucracy).

I browsed Seashore's collection. They have three single-truck Birneys.

Two of these were built in 1919 by American Car for the Denver & South Platte Railway as their 1 and 2. As it happened, they were the only cars ever owned by that company. Thus, STM has D&SP's entire fleet. Both were sold to the York Utilities Company of Sanford, Maine, in 1927 and regauged from 3' 6" Denver Gauge to 4" 8 1/2" Standard RR Gauge. STM acquired them in 1946 and 1 is restored (albeit still RR Gauge) as D&SP 1, and 2 is York Utilities 82.

I should note York Utilities took over the former Atlantic Shore Line, which built STM's Main Line.

The third Birney is Portland (Maine) Railroad Company 615, built by Wason in 1920 and acquired by Seashore in 1941.

None of the Seashore Birneys operated in Richmond VA.

What would be a real coup would be to have one of Frank Sprague's original 1888 Richmond VA trollays.

Phil Mulligan

Fort Collins Birney #25 started off its life in Richmond, VA...
http://www.fortcollinstrolley.org/history.html (See the "Car 25 Returns" tab)

There are a handful of cars from Richmond still around (though as alluded to earlier, Richmond isn't considered "Northern Virginia" and I believe Wesley is correct that the ex-W&OD steeplecab is the only piece of traction equipment from NoVa still in existence). Besides Fort Collins 25 there's also a restored Birney body in the state history museum in Richmond; a derelict Birney body owned by the City of Petersburg (though I don't have any recent updates on this one so it may no longer be around); and a wood streetcar body at Seashore. Seashore also has a Roanoke Master Unit that started life as a Virginia Electric Power car but this car ran for VEPCO in Lynchburg, not Richmond.

While not Northern Virginia we have car 390 down here in Hampton which
as far as we know is the only surviving car from the entire Hampton Roads
area. It was built by Brill in 1917 to a Baltimore Semi convertible design.
(Seashore has it Baltimore sister car 5748)

BSM had the car for 40 years and while a little restoration was started it
was never restored and in 2013 it was offered to the Hampton History
Museum which is currently restoring it for eventual display under inclosed
cover in downtown Hampton in front of the museum. Keith Bray is helping
with the restoration.

We have a Facebook page for it...the streetcar 390 project.

A lot of significant electric traction equipment did not get preserved. Those cars that Sprague electrified were horsecar bodies. They were pretty small and quickly became obsolete.

However, I'm fairly sure that one of the Sprague trucks from Richmond is preserved, perhaps at the Henry Ford?