Museum of Transportation Update

This past Saturday, I managed to find the time to head out to the Museum of Transportation for the day to help the other members of the Museum of Transportation Trolley Volunteers (MTTV) the group that maintains, operates, and restores the traction collection at the museum. It's winter, which means no operations, but winter inspections are in full-swing. CTA single number 44 just completed inspection last week and was not in the shop. I apologize for the lack of quality in the photos, I took them with my cell phone camera.

Here is a freshly rebuilt motor-generator set for our ex-Philly PCC number 2740. The original MG set failed in service last year, and it was deemed to be beyond economical repair. We purchased an extra from the group at Pike's Peak, Colorado and had it rebuilt by the local motor shop.


St. Louis Waterworks Railway number 10 was in the shop for its annual inspection. The brunt of the work happened the previous Thursday, the other day of the week MTTV volunteers are out at the museum. The work that remained for Saturday included replacing the ropes on the trolley poles, checking the trolley catchers, inspecting the controllers, and replacing some interior light bulbs in the car.

The latest restoration effort of the MTTV members is St. Louis Public Service number 1743. This car was part of the third and final order of PCC cars by SLPS. SLPS sold the car to MUNI in San Fransisco in 1957, where it operated until the early 1980s. The car ended up at East Troy, until the mid 1980s when members rescued it from the Phantom Woods carbarn. MUNI finally transferred ownership of the car to MOT about 18 months ago. Since then work has been going full-tilt on it. Like most PCC cars, the 1743 was prone to corrosion. It also had a lot of damage from years of rough service and "fender benders." Over the past year, a metalworker has rebuilt all of the wreck and most of the rust damage from the car.

Here we see the nearly-completed rear stepwell. Last year, this was mostly bondo and cardboard. We've removed the treadles, as SLPS never had them when in service.

We estimate that we have about another 2 years worth of work left on the car. Besides all of the body work, we've been ringing out the electrical system, replacing some missing components, and doing work to backdate the car to its SLPS appearance.

In other MOT volunteer news, serveral volunteers have been restoring a former Missouri Pacific round-end observation car. This project has been ongoing for several years now. The carbody is made of alumninum, and all of the old paint was stripped off. New MOPAC colors are going on one side. The interior also is very nice, but it was inacessable for photos.