David Writes........
Last month, when I visited the Phoenix area for the weekend, I also visited the Phoenix Trolley Museum and the Arizona Railway Museum.
The Phoenix Trolley Museum:
The museum is located near downtown Phoenix. In its collection, the group has two cars, both double-truck Birney safety cars built by the American Car Company in St. Louis. One car 116 is cosmetically restored, complete with an interior.
The car was once operable, through a set of home made trucks and a single 300v mining locomotive motor. However, in recent years, correct Brill trucks from Japan were put under the car. The museum also has a mining locomotive and the body of car 504.
The Arizona Railway Museum:
The Arizona Railway Museum is located in suburban Chandler, Arizona. The museum houses a small indoor museum in an old mobile home, modified to look like a Southern Pacific Depot. The museum has a small, but interesting collection of rolling stock, including a Southern Pacific 2-8-0, pictured below.
The museum also has this Baldwin AS-616 diesel from the Magma Arizona Railroad.
A Santa Fe Superintendent's Car is also on display.
The museum, adjacent to a line of Union Pacific, also hosts several private rail cars. One of these cars was Promontory Point, a former Union Pacific business car, now lettered for the Central Pacific.
Also in the collection is this former Toronto PCC car. This car was formerly used by the transit authority in Phoenix as a display promoting the light rail line when it was under construction.
All in all, it was nice to get out to some warm weather and see some interesting railroad and streetcar-related sites.
I visited the Phoenix Trolley Museum several years ago, and got to ride the 116 when it was "operational."
ReplyDeleteThe car was powered by a single 250V mining locomotive motor mounted below the floor, driving one axle via a chain drive. You had to see it to believe it. Since there were no curves on the museum's 300' of track, it worked OK. I'm glad to hear they're making the car more correct! The rest of the car was nicely restored, I must say.