[quote][/quote]I decided to put this on the main board because it doesn't really fit anywhere else, even though I don't think catastrophizing posts should be here (click photo to enlarge): https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=67 ... 7942171029
Lomita is in the southern LA area north of Long Beach.
"Nate Vincent
16h
A loss is about to occur at the Lomita Railroad Museum. The city of Lomita, California has arranged for the car to be scrapped in less than two weeks. This car has been here for decades and is one of the few pieces of actual rolling stock the museum has. The antique boxcar was built in the 1910s and is one of few surviving examples of this type. The main issue appears to be some rotting wood (cosmetic), but all the metal parts seem to be in good condition.
If you want to save this piece of history, consider contacting Lomita City Hall to advocate for its preservation:
https://lomitacity.com/contact/"
Edit: changed the title to reflect that the car is obviously ex-SP/ possibly T&NO.

curious...
the city of lomita, ca try to do that already 8 years ago:
https://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/01/19/ ... t-of-town/

so how serious is it?

btw
to my knowledge this is not a up car
i check my records and come back later

My records say this is a Southern Pacific class B-50-13 or B-50-14 Boxcar made by
Standard Steel 1923/24 in the thousands for:

Southern Pacific
Pacific Electric
Texas & New Orleans
Houston & Texas Central
El Paso & Southwestern
Arizona Eastern
Southern Pacific de Mexico

An unconfirmed info say it is #51406
what makes it a T&NO car.

Because I can not post pics wider then 1000 pix
i have to cut the builder photo...

The San Louis Obispo Railroad Museum has one of these:
https://slorrm.com/QR-SPBoxCar.html

The Southern California Railway Museum has at least 4 of them with PE history:
https://socalrailway.org/collections/pa ... ic-roster/

So it is a very rare piece of history.
Special attention that it was not modernized with steel ends
plus it still have the original T-Section trucks.

The ability of municipalities to remove an object perceived to be a nuisance in some way without meaningfully engaging the marketplace for potential new owners should not be underestimated. There have been many unfortunate and necessary cases of this documented on RYPN previously.

Another relevant incident involves the City of Irvine, CA, scrapping in 2023 a restored 1943 PV-1 that was documented to have flown combat missions:

https://web.archive.org/web/20231217013451/https://www.ocregister.com/2023/12/11/why-irvine-quietly-scrapped-a-vintage-wwii-pv-1-ventura-bomber/

https://vintageaviationnews.com/warbirds-news/the-city-of-irvine-neglects-and-destroys-pv-1-ventura.html

Note how the city claims to have contacted a single museum and two potential movers but did not make a public advertisement for sale.

In terms of contacting the city of Lomita, I suggest requesting that the city publicly advertise the availability of this car for sale or donation to another museum, noting its potential to tell the story of railroads in California to the nation between the 1920s, the Great Depression, WWII, and the 1950s.

It also might be helpful to note that the wood components on cars of this type are designed to be replaced, and some deterioration does not affect the overall structural integrity of the car. Additionally, the car is in excellent shape for its age, largely because of the gentle climate of Southern California and the museum's maintenance efforts.

Has anyone contacted the Southern California Railway Museum? The Lomita museum is about 80 miles from the Southern California Railway Museum, and the car would help in interpreting standardization across the SP subsidiaries and the geographic reach of the SP's network.

[quote="linkthebutler"]

The Southern California Railway Museum has at least 4 of them with PE history:
https://socalrailway.org/collections/pa ... ic-roster/

SCRM should have 5 such cars. Three were acquired early when it was Orange Empire Trolley Museum; then later on two more were acquired. I understand that the PE box cars had a different design to the brake rigging compared to the standard SP design; this to allow them to negotiate tighter radius curves.

I'll see if I can find one of my rosters that should have the numbers.

Brian Norden
55+ years a member of OETM/OERM/SCRM member #521
former member BOD, also former Chairman

Five Cars:
PE 2704, to PE 00131, to SP MW 6258
PE 2721, to PE 001??, to SP MW 6259
PE 2729, to PE 00117
PE 2731, to PE 00118
PE 2737, to PE 00119

Pacific Electric numbers 00xxx are company service cars (non-revenue)

Brian Norden
55+ years a member of OETM/OERM/SCRM member #521
former member BOD, also former Chairman

Thank you Brian
good information.

With the different brake rigging for the tight LA curves on Pacific Electric I am
curious if that was a factory new "option" or it was home made later?
Usually in the Harriman and post Harriman era even a small difference in the
equipment type results in the increase of equipment type suffix.
e.g.
B-50-13
B-50-14
B-50-15
etc...
But the PE cars are all B-50-13 same like the one in San louis Obispo.

:-) Uwe

I know of at least one organization from the Texas & New Orleans service area that tried to contact Lomita city government about the boxcar, I have no idea what they heard back, if anything. One can imagine that a scrapper quietly offered them a minimal amount of money to take the whole thing away, but that those few dollars are burning a hole in the city government's pocket.

Here's an update I got from the Assistant City Manager

That's hopeful, at a minimum they know that it's being watched.

I previously visited the Lomita Railroad museum which is across the street from the park where I believe that this box car (boxcar: 33.797855, -118.318780) is located.

As you can tell from google maps there is a tank car in the same park and also a caboose (33.798566, -118.318207) on a length of track in another likely city park (a park adjacent to the Lomita Railroad museum) across a street from the boxcar.

The red caboose (across the street) is on a length of track in the park that is mostly empty and has plenty of room for the boxcar if the city was inclined to keep the box car. (About maybe 300 feet away). This might be doable with a rotator heavy lift tow truck with a few lift and place operations (for both car body and trucks) to get it to the other park.

As I recall the boxcar was possibly being used as a meeting room (stairs in front to the door of the boxcar) and may have had a rudimentary ventilation system in the box car. The park has clearly been improved with landscaping and other features in the last few years and I suspect there may have been a desire to put a more modern and practical meeting room in the park or just to be rid of any liability associated with the boxcar which abuts a residence.

The Lomita museum is small and already has a caboose (not the same caboose as the red one in the park) as well as a steam engine on static display. It doesn't appear that they have room to put a boxcar on the museum property or at least not easily. The boxcar is close to the street and that side of the street doesn't appear to have any power poles; so, possibly a rotator tow truck could lift the body and put it on a flat bed (low boy?, with wide load permit) somewhat easily. Another flatbed for the trucks and possibly away it could go to a new home if there is an interested party with funds and space for it.

The car has been "available for donation" for ten years or so. I looked at it that long ago for the Nevada State Railroad Museum, Boulder City. While presented as a UP car, everyone's conclusion is that is an SP car. It is in generally good, complete shape, but will need some or all siding replaced as would be expected for wood exposed to outside conditions for 50+ years. It will not be easy to get out of the park... it will likely require two cranes, so expensive and to make it more interesting, there are power lines around the park.

I would have liked to acquire it but there was limited interest by our museum support group for the acquisition, so no money available.

The city was cooperative, and is not the villain here...

They're now looking for people to perform restoration work. I suggested Strasburg for the restoration

Strasburg is 3,000 miles away. SCRM is a few miles away, they might take it on, for a suitable fee.