Has anyone heard any news of the moving of the Trolleyville collection to Cleveland and the continuing operation of the CA&E cars in that city?
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
I know a pair of ex-CA&E cars did make trips on the rail system several years ago.
Get out your checkbooks! The Cleveland Plain Dealer this morning in a large article announced that the owners of the 30+ collection of trolleys, including all the CA&E cars, is to be put up for sale as early as July. The entire scheme to build a new carbarn, loop, to run the cars, etc., is all kaput, thanks to the Great Recession.
This is a major blow to historic preservation in Cleveland and to area trolley lovers. This is a priceless collection and now it could be broken up. It'll be more than interesting to see what's next.
Anyone want to be the CA&E cars wind up back in Illinois?
Key word in last sentence above was "bet", not "be."
Get out WHAT checkbooks? :(
Sad fact. There are very few museums capable of taking these cars. This tiny marketplace simply cannot absorb a glut of 30+ cars all at once. There isn't the money to MOVE them let alone buy them. Keep in mind several trolley museums are right out because they are the wrong gauge (Arden, Halton County, Baltimore). Others are not solvent enough to take on a $20-$50k purchase and move. And why would the West Coast museums take an interest? That leaves - gosh, IRM, Seashore, East Troy, Orbisonia and maybe a few others. Rub their checkbooks together and there isn't much money, and most of that will have to go for moving expenses.The last time a pile of interurban cars was dumped on the marketplace at once, it was the National Park Service's Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which dumped 22 cars onto the marketplace in a few months. They had to give the cars away to anyone who would take them! (well it was a long-term loan officially, but we all knew they'd never want the cars back.) This was around '86 during economic boom-times, and transportation was dirt cheap because the railroads would still haul them by rail.
That could not happen today because moving must now be done by truck. You're looking at $10,000 just to move them a few hundred miles. That cost reduces the amount that the museums can bid for them. It's hard to solicit donations these days, because in these times, donors favor homeless shelters and food banks. I just don't see this having a chance to work out unless somebody gets really, really creative. For instance sell about 3 cars a year, which the market could afford, and use the proceeds to house the remainder. Or, let the buying museums spend all their precious cash on movement, and carry a mortgage on the cars themselves.
harpwolf: Your analysis is so good and convincing, to say nothing of depressing. I had not thought about it in the way you have.
I did think that the (Union) Illinois folks would want the CA&E cars back home; they are fun just to sit in, let alone ride.
But you have certainly set me to wondering, "What will happen now?"
Too bad it it wasn't me who won the $232 million lottery last week. We'd be laying down rail right this minute!
Thanks for a great, realistic analysis of this situation harpwolf.
Oh, it's worse than that, even. St. Louis Museum of Transport has deaccessioned about 20 pieces of equipment, some trolleys. I've heard that Ohio Railway Museum Worthington wants to get rid of some stuff this year. Unless those folks will let the stuff be "deaccessioned, still on the property, seeking buyer someday" - it will be a really bad year.
If only the Ohio traction folks could get together, get bold, and focus their resources on a common goal...
Why does moving now have to be done by truck?
--Roger Williams, TRAINS subscriber, Boulder, Colorado.
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