M454?

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Hey...

1.  Car 3487 is about as far from handicapped accessible as we could
possibly get ... anyone over 50 will have trouble climbing into it.  It
will be prominently displayed in the new visitors center at the
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum but there are no plans to run it.  

2   M-454 ex 4116, one of 50 Pressed Steel cars from 1911.  Service need
expired about 1937.  What else do you want to know?  There are at least
two 4100s extant, one in very fine condition.    As far as scrapping is
concerned ... the best way to preserve a car is to pay for it.  Most
railfans have no interest in paying.  The public and foundations pay
most of the costs.  Railfans ... somewhere between 1 and 5 percent of
the total.  Operating costs are more than 99% borne by non-railfans. 
Therefore it becomes clear as the sky over Arizona that you cannot and
should not preserve every bucket of rust.  

3.  4140 was converted to M458 scraper, then to tow car M-200 in 1955. 
It rests on No. 5 track in the shop at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. 
There are no immediate plans to restore it to operating condition; there
are many other partly completed projects ahead of it.  I can see at
least ten to twenty years of restoration work already stacked in the
chute ahead of it.  And, as the older museum members die and newer ones
take over, they will doubtless have their own agendas.  In the meantime,
it makes a good indoor storage shed.   

Fred Schneider    

AProchek at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Hey,
> Someone kindly give me the history of this car - I have pictures of it in
> WVD's book running around Pittsburgh on a fan trip in the '60s but in
> reviewing an old trolley fair I see it was scrapped.  A real shame - probably
> not too many high floor cars around; 3487 seems to have been near-permanently
> sidelined and I don't what's going on with 4140