Streetcars in the Valley of the Sun

Frank writes...

A family wedding took my wife and me to Phoenix, Arizona this past weekend and while there I (of course) had to do some railfanning. I rode the still-kinda-new light rail line and even got a chance to visit the Arizona Street Railway Museum, also known as the Phoenix Trolley Museum.

You can be excused for not being familiar with ASRM. It is, or at least was, one of the smallest operating trolley museums in the country, with about 200' of track, one switch, a two-stall barn, and three pieces of equipment. The photo above shows John Drury, an ASRM volunteer who was kind enough to show me around, in front of the barn. The museum was open but it's been a few years since they operated anything. The museum sits on city property behind a historic house museum, which John offered to show me through, but I have to admit I declined. I mean, it's a house, I have one at home.

Here's the pride of the fleet: Phoenix Street Railway 116, built by American in 1928. It's a double-truck, double-ended safety car, basically a Birney but with bigger end windows. It also has doors at all four corners similar to the Milwaukee 900s.

Car 116 was retired in 1948 when streetcar service in Phoenix ended and the body was acquired by the museum in 1977. The restoration work that went into the car is pretty impressive given that the volunteers who did the work had limited resources, virtually no spare parts, and none of the institutional knowledge that we sometimes take for granted. Overall the interior of the car looks rather nice and, overall, appears pretty authentic give or take some details.

That brings us to the car's mechanical state. Remember that "no spare parts" thing? Well when ASRM was restoring the car body they had no trucks, motors, controllers, etc to actually make the body into a complete car. What they did have was a whole bunch of stuff from Phelps-Dodge, which had just shut down a 250-volt rail operation at its smelter in Douglas. So car 116 was made operational - sorta - using 250v equipment from Phelps-Dodge. The resulting motorman's position is shown above. It doesn't look bad.

The last time I was in this car was maybe 20 years ago and it was running, after a fashion. This photo, which was printed and hung along the wall of the barn together with some other shots from the restoration of car 116, shows one of the trucks that it sat on. The Douglas smelter didn't have any equipment with normal streetcar trucks so ASRM built a pair of arch-bar trucks using some parts from Bettendorf freight car trucks and put car 116 on them. One truck carried the brake rigging and the other truck was connected by chain to a traction motor mounted to the frame of the car. Curves aren't a problem on this route.

As bizarre as this arrangement was, it worked and the car was made operational and ran back and forth for some years. But I suspect the ASRM folks always wanted to improve on this setup and in 2008 they were able to do just that. The car now sits on Brill streetcar trucks, as seen above, which are correct Brill 177E1X's or something extremely close. Unfortunately it still needs more work to be made operational; it lacks correct controllers, grids, brake rigging, air tanks, and compressor. But one of these days it should make a really nice operating car.

In additional to car 116 there are two other pieces of equipment at ASRM. One is car 504 (originally 108), shown above, which is from the same series as car 116. This car is probably unique among preserved streetcars in that it was a monkey house at the zoo for a time, but in 2001 the body was acquired in fairly complete condition. For better or worse it was then stripped down to the condition shown above, but the components are in storage and the template is sitting on the next track over.

And then out in front, at the east end of the 200' main line next to the house museum, is Phelps-Dodge locomotive 17 from the Douglas smelter operation. This locomotive was operational as recently as about five years ago, John said, and is still presumably fully functional. It may be low-slung but it is standard gauge. According to the builder's info cast into its frame it was built at the works in Douglas, A.T. in December 1906.

I thought this was kind of interesting: a chronological display of different types of track, starting with some really lightweight old stuff and moving forwards to the end of the Phoenix streetcar era.

The Bad News

The bad news is that ASRM has lost its lease, and after a few decades here in the city park it is being evicted in September 2017. They are looking at options but they have few financial resources and a small volunteer base. Ideally the museum would like to co-locate with some other attraction, to increase foot traffic, but at the moment it's not certain where exactly that would be. Hopefully ASRM is able to find a good home - they're certainly working hard on that now - but this is yet another lesson in why a museum must own its own land. Too many railway museums are on the precipice because they're on leased land. It's another thing we at IRM take for granted - that our entire museum cannot be snatched away from us at someone else's whim - but that scenario is the current reality for ASRM.

Arizona Railway Museum

The Arizona Railway Museum is a non-profit volunteer organization with a basically static collection in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.  It's open on weekends, but due to the climate the museum is closed from June to August or the middle of September (our busy season!!).  They moved to the current location seven or eight years ago.  The storage yard is nicely laid out, and there is an interchange switch with an active freight spur.  Some of the cars are privately owned and are Amtrak certified, so excursion trips can be run.

This building houses the visitor's center, gift shop, offices, and crew facilities.  The visitor's center is fairly small but has some nice displays.

And now, out into the yard.  Most of the collection consists of relatively modern passenger cars, largely from the Santa Fe and SP.  Some are open for visitors; others are privately owned and not part of the collection.

Here's a good example of making a virture of necessity.  This old heavyweight was presumably gutted for work train service.  Along one side, there are seats from many different railroads and eras, all labeled.  It makes an interesting display.  And I was told that Jerry McGonigle had worked on this car.   It looks nice!

At the far end, there are a couple of streetcar seats, and a wooden bench from a Hawaiian narrow-gauge car.

The signal display.

This Toronto PCC was on display in downtown Phoenix for several years, advertising the coming of a new light-rail system.  After the LRV's started running, it was no longer needed and sold for $1 to the museum.

This is an E8 originally from the North Western, then Metra.   As the sign says, it passed through several hands before winding up here.

The museum's standard signs hook onto the rail, as you can see here.  The signage on the whole is very good.

This Pullman car, currently the Federal, was once the Lackawanna business car Anthracite.

This is the only steam locomotive.  You can walk up into the cab; all the controls are labeled, and you can ring the bell

I talked to a couple of volunteers who were working on this box car, which will serve for additional parts storage and a workshop.  They have about 50-75 active volunteers, many of whom work in the gift shop or as docents, for school and charter groups.  There's always more maintenance to be done, of course, and several things have been repainted.  In this climate, though, indoor storage is not a priority.

Visit to Tucson

Last week Frank and I and our family were in Arizona for my daughter's wedding, and I had a chance to visit Tucson.  The Old Pueblo Trolley group used to run cars down the middle of the street in a heritage trolley operation.  Part of the line used original streetcar tracks with the paving removed.   Unfortunately, this was stopped when a modern light rail line was constructed along the same route, and the old tracks were removed.  The Old Pueblo is now in a state of suspended animation, at best.

The operating cars are still stored at the old carbarn; there is no longer any connection onto the street.  The shops for the new light rail line are a block away.

These are all foreign cars, so they don't appear in Frank's database.  They are from Belgium, Japan, and Portugal.  Some other equipment is either stored elsewhere or has been scrapped.

 The single trucker appears to be in very good condition, as it's under a roof.

I can remember riding this Japanese car (above) with Frank many years ago.  I think we were sitting on folding chairs.

And this is what the modern cars look like.  Unlike most modern LRV installations, such as Dallas and Phoenix where the cars are almost entirely on a dedicated ROW, the Tucson line is mostly in the middle of the street among unrestricted traffic.   And parts of it are single track.

By the Time I Get to Phoenix...

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.