PRCo's 1713

[Edward G Skuchas]

I was out to Worthington in July.  I was on an end of week and early next week business trip, so I stayed in the Pgh and Ohio area over the weekend.  I was at Arden on Sat and then was in Ohio on Sun.  I saw the Lake Shore Elec #170? steel body in Newark at the museum there.  It looks like they are making progress to restore the car to some level of presentation.  Wrong trucks, no underbody, no interior.

Went to Columbus, drove around, and then went to Worthington to see if the Museum was open.  They had just closed, but let me in to look around.  Most trolley cars are tarped.  At least the tarps are new, but based on the car they were operating that day, I can't imagine that those cars are in the best of shape.  The C&LE high speed was covered, but I heard that it was in poor shape.  The CD&M Redbird was accessible.  It is difficult to fully tarp that car since it sits so high.  I crawled underneath so that I could photograph the underbody for modeling purposes.  I think they had some animals making nests in the car since the seats looked torn up.  Was inside their very old wood car.  Looked okay.  The Pgh PCC was uncovered.  It had been repainted, but I think they only chose "close" colors versus a perfect match.  I could check my photos for the car number.  I believe that it did have a singed circle logo on the side.  People seemed friendly, but the place is in desperate need of repairs.  The barn is close to falling down.  They told me that they were out getting prices for a new barn structure.

Regards,

Edward G. Skuchas, P.E.
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Parsons Energy & Chemicals Group, Inc.
2675 Morgantown Road
Reading, PA 19607
610-855-2532 voice
610-855-2161 fax
edward.g.skuchas at parsons.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Fredbruhn at aol.com 
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 3:10 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: Re: PRCo's 1713


Now that Ed has identified 1713, the last time I saw her was probably 3-4 
years ago at Worthington, the open air museum.  (Both ends of their one barn 
are open to the elements).   They had painted the car and she looked good.  
Don't know about the interior.  

There was some dickering about Ed's ownership with the car housed at the 
museum.  This is a splintered group with some wanting the steam engine (4-8-0 
N&W I believe) and some PRR and NW passenger equipment gone, and others 
wanting to concentrate on the railroad stuff.  The town of Worthington 
doesn't hold the museum (my opinion and what I have heard) in their backyard. 
 It is jammed 
into a wedge layout with the onetime track extension north from the museum on 
the old CD&M right of way cut back to the end of the museum.   Urban 
development or something.  They run south along the current rr some distance 
on a single track.
and have a few yard tracks storing everything.   

Then I heard a Pittsburgh PCC was in Ashley, OH which is about 25 miles north 
of Columbus.  (north of Delaware ).  Have no details on what is going on or 
if that is 1713, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Any info would be helpful and if complete enough I'll try and make contact 
and maybe get some shots for Derrick to scan for me.

Fred Bruhn