Trolleyville/Lake Shore Electric Collection

Some of the rarest and near/dear to my heart traction equipment is finally making it's way back home to Illinois. After an aborted attempt at moving the old Trolleyville museum from Olmstead Falls, Ohio to a new site (and reorganized as the Lake Shore Electric Rwy) on the Cleveland lakefront, the largest number of ex CA&E and Fox River Line cars were made available for sale.The winning bids were announced just a week ago on Oct 2nd, and the results are stunning.

The Illinois Rwy Museum will now be home to CA&E wood cars 36 and 319. Car 36 is from the first order of AE&C cars, and is a sister to Car 20 at the Fox River Trolley Museum. It is believed that both of these cars operated on both the first day of operations in 1902 and on the last day in 1957. Car 20 by virtue of it's number is "older" than the 36, (much like twins, one had to come first), and I believe these cars are the oldest operating interurbans in the US.

IRM will also be home to CA&E Pullman 409, the only remaining car of the first order of steel cars for the CA&E. St Louis "curved side/fishbelly" cars #451 & 460, from the last order of steel cars for the CA&E (and the last "standard" interurbans built), will also be coming to IRM.

This will give IRM a car from each of the CA&E's original steel car orders, a Pullman, a Cincinnati (#431 already at IRM), and two of the St Louis cars.

IRM will also be getting a single truck open trolley, originally from Vera Cruz, Mexico. Similar cars ran on many of the Fox Valley streetcar and interurban lines in the early 1900's.

Not to be outdone, the Fox River Trolley Museum will also become the new home for one of the CA&E St Louis cars, #458. Even more significant will be the addition of former Shaker Hts Rapid Transit car #304, one of the original Aurora Elgin & Fox River Electric cars, which will be returning to home rails for the first time in 70+ years. It is important to note that it's quite a rare achievement for a museum to operate "home rail" equipment.

Sometime in the not-to-distant future, this scene below will be recreated in real life as a Fox River car again travels south down the mainline alongside the Fox River, passing under the

former Illinois Central mainline at Coleman.

Life will imitate art !

The other remaining Fox River car, #303, will remain in Ohio at the Northern Ohio Rwy Museum, preserved as a Shaker Hts car. The Connecticut Trolley Museum will be the new home for CA&E 303, and the Electric City Trolley Museum will be the new owners for CA&E St Louis car 453.

I saw the ex-Fox River cars at Trolleyville, but never had a chance to ride them. Sometime next spring, the chance to finally ride a Fox River car should be realized, to realize that dream on the actual Fox River Line is something I honestly thought had little chance to happen. Likewise the CA&E St Louis cars and the CA&E Pullman, I saw them at Trolleyville, but never had a chance to even get inside them, much less ride them. Now they'll be less than 30 minutes from home. (My home that is !)

Both IRM and FRTM will need extensive funds to help with the costs of purchase, rigging, transport, track space, indoor storage, restorations, etc, etc.

IRM is accepting donations online at www.irm.org in increments of $25, accessed through the online store. Both IRM and FRTM also accept donations (no amount too small, every bit helps !) at the following addresses.

Illinois Railway Museum

PO Box 427

7000 Olson Rd

Union, IL 60180

Fox River Trolley Museum

PO Box 315

South Elgin, IL 60177

And with that, I'm looking at the calendar with only a little more than 30 days until Trainfest in Milwaukee. I've acquired a couple new pieces to add to the Interurbans of The Fox Valley display and I need to finish up some of the summer projects to be ready. Can't guarantee I'll be any more timely in posting the updates, but at least when it's all said and done I'll have plenty of new things to show here. Keep tuned.

LSE Auction Update (Labor Day)

Brief update on the LSE auction, at least in terms of local (Chicagoland) interest.

Early in August, the Illinois Rwy Museum Board of Directors authorized bidding on up to a total of eight cars from the LSE collection, with a particular emphasis on the CA&E wood and steel cars. There's a total of eight CA&E cars, but that's no indicator that they're trying for all of them. I can see giving up on two of the four CA&E 450 series St Louis cars, and trying to get 6 CA&E cars, and two cars from the rest of the collection (Another Fox River car, maybe one of the Iowa motors ?) We'll have to see.

In the meantime, IRM is the first group (at least that I'm aware of) that's actively solicting funds for the purchase. You can contact IRM directly and/or donate direct to a specific fund set up for these cars. Link here :

http://www.irm.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=715

Every dollar helps, remember a winning bid is only the start, the museum also needs to pay for rigging (both at shipment and delivery points), permits, transportation, insurance, track space, and eventual indoor storage, restoration, upkeep, etc.

Here's hoping that at least one of the Fox River cars "comes home" to FRTM in South Elgin as well.

Winning bids will be announced on October 2nd (along with the 2016 Olympics bid which Chicago is a finalist for !)

The Lake Shore Electric Auction

Another bit of news the last couple of weeks has been the final official announcement of the auction at the Lake Shore Electric Railroad Museum. A brief bit of background is in order..

In the late '50s, Gerald Brookins of Cleveland, a lifelong railfan, purchased a number of interuban and streetcars with the idea of preserving them and operating a museum. Over the years, the collection grew to a total of 30 different pieces. This equipment was operated at a museum called "Trolleyville", in Olmstead Falls, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. The museum was unique in many ways, one of the more unique factors is that the museum was essentially located within a trailer park (also owned/operated by Mr Brookins) and acted as something of an internal rapid transit system for the park.

After many years of operation, the trailer park was sold (approx 6-7 years ago) and Trolleyville was forced to find a new home. A rather ambitious plan was adopted, Trolleyville was reformed as the Lake Shore Electric Railway, with a plan to move the collection to the downtown Cleveland lakefront, and establish and operate a trolley musuem as a downtown attraction. The site chosen is very close to existing attractions such as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Browns stadium, etc.

Long story short, the recent economic downturn was just perfectly timed to hit the LSE group about as hard as they could be hit. After moving all of the collection to Cleveland (the streetcars and smaller interurbans to a lakefront warehouse location, and the heavy interurbans stored on Cleveland RTA property), they struggled for much of the last 5 years to raise funding to make their plans a reality. In the end, they simply ran out of time, and mounting debt with minimal resources of repayment forced their hand.

As a result, the entire collection is being offered for sale. The collection is only being offered to 501(C)(3) operations, private "collectors" are excluded from the sale.

Of particular interest to readers here are the "Chicago" cars. The collection has a total of 10 interurbans that originated in Chicago. Two of the last three remaing Aurora Elgin & Fox River Electric cars (306 is currently in the IRM collection) are available, the #303 and #304.

There are also a total of 8 CA&E cars. This includes the only existing CA&E steel Pullman, the #409, the only existing steel CA&E St Louis cars (the 450 series), #451, #453, #458, & #460.
Also available are wooden CA&E cars ##36, #303, & #319.

Needless to say there is quite a bit of interest around the country for your various local museum groups to acquire any/all of this collection. As a result, most of the likely suspects are acknowledging their interest, but keeping specifics very quiet to not tip their respective hands to competing interests (It is an auction after all)

In the end, this is a large collection, and it will take a lot of money and support to bring them to any museum. I encourage anyone interested to contact their museum and make their donations, money talks and no amount is too small.