[PRCo] Museum shop sales

[Bob Rathke]

In the mid-1960's, when PAT started to abandon trolley lines and scrap many PCC's, PTM acquired a supply of excess trolley items that they sold in the museum gift shop.  I bought a Car Stop sign, a control console switch plate from a PCC and other items for a few dollars.  Items that I didn't buy were the electric fare registers, from 1200's, I believe.
A similar sale is happening at the Illinois Railway Museum these days.  IRM must have been given a truckload of excess CTA stuff that is now in the used bookstore (a Milwaukee Road baggage car): coin changers (with CTA stamping) for $10, ticket punches (no stamping) for $10, controller handles from CTA L cars for $25, and brass brake handles from steeplecab electric locomotives for $35.  Plus CTA signs and third rail and pole insulators. There are hundreds of these items in cartons stacked high in the baggage car.  There's even a keg full of spare springs for the ticket punches.

Most of these items became excess inventory after the start of exact-fare-only, electronic tickets/passes and electronic car control systems.

Bob 5/7/05