[PRCo] Re: Supulpa Birney

[Charles Brown]

I got around to looking for some info on that birney and found out that
they have a website at http://www.sapulpatrolley.org

Can't find anything about that El Reno operation.  The car sounds like
one of those that came from the new Edwards Railway Motor Car Company.
Their website at http://www.edrailco no longer works and I suspect that
they have been taken over by the Miner Manufacturing Company.  I'll bet
that the car in question is the one at
http://minermfgco/Miner_Rail_Services/motorcars.htm  (hope that works).  

Here's a brief history of that car and 3 of its Strafford sisters.  They
were bought by the Keokuk Junction Railway in Iowa in 1991 with hopes of
starting a tourist service over the Keokuk-Hamilton bridge and out to
the Union Electric dam.  Car 161 was outfitted with steps and a trolley
pole and transported workers over the dam's electric railway during a
retrofit of its generators.  Power had to be raised from 250 volts (used
by the regular trolley flat car) to 375 volts for the car to operate.
It also provided public transportation when floods closed the
Mississippi River bridges in that area in 1993.  The proposed tourist
service never materialized and the 161 and 168 (likewise fitted with
steps and poles) were sold to the New York Museum of Transportation.
The other two cars went to the Edwards Railway Motor Car Company and
they converted them into motorcars with the addition of gas engines and
generators.  The other one is running on an eastern tourst line.     

Charlie

Charlesebrown at webtv.net