Nick is making lots of amazing deals! But don't get too excited. This Dallas double-ender PCC is not part of the IRM collection. We're just storing it temporarily for McKinney Avenue, its eventual permanent home. IRM is doing this as a good-will gesture for our friends in Dallas.
Here it is arriving at the front gate, then negotiating the tight turns at Springfield Ave. and Riverview, and then at Depot and Central.
We had the same driver from Silk Road as before with the Twin City car. He had the hardest job.
Then it had to be unloaded at Central onto the yard 6 leads.
This required chopping out the ice and frozen gravel from several places so the Joy engine could get through. All went well; Gerry was running the locomotive.
And it is now safely back on track.So I didn't get anything else accomplished today. And man, was it cold! At least this is good training for the next five cars to arrive. Heh.
Today also happened to be the big holiday lunch for the Wednesday crowd. Phyllis Schauer is retiring at the end of the month, so it was also a farewell party. Here she is cutting the cake. I'm sure everyone will miss her!Update: Our good friend Tom Hunter sent us the below photo of a car from this series in service on Route 8 in Dallas in 1948 (3334 was originally Dallas 612) , about ten years before the cars were sold to Boston.
Always wondered why the Dallas boys didn't go after getting one of these on home rails (did PCCs run there?) glad to see they finally have.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the condition of this Dallas Car. If I remember correctly, these cars, called "Texas Rangers" by Boston trolley fans, spent a lot of their life on the isolated Mattapan-Ashmont line that serves as a feeder to the red line. This means the cars were out of the street, and probably did not have the salt exposure other Boston PCCs have.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for those of you playing at home, modifications for Boston to the cars included couplers and MU controls, and a revised seating arrangement.
I'd say the car is as junky as most Boston cars are. I'm not aware of any major overhaul of these cars. Also the ex-Dallas cars were not MU, but only had couplers added for emergency towing. Note the lack of MU buttons on the side of the coupler. Bill Wulfert
ReplyDelete"We're just storing it temporarily...."
ReplyDeleteSigh...how many times have we heard THAT before? :-D
Let's just hope it turns out better than the last time we stored air-electric PCC's for people!
ReplyDeleteThe worst that could happen is that there would be a junky, modified Dallas PCC that could be re-painted to original colors and be a static representation of a double-ended PCC that IRM lacks. Or is there an IT PCC aquisition in the works?? Worst case scenario and all...oh yah and money suddenly appearing to do so!
ReplyDeleteJohn Csoka, IRM Western Division