[PRCo] Re: Lake Shore Electric Ry. may auction its trolleys

[Edward H. Lybarger]

Unfortunately, it's not this simple.  I know one of the principals in this,
and he and others have provided a lot of capital.  Yes, the public sector
was cooperative as well, but it was not expected that they would wrap things
up like a present and hand them to LSE.  Plenty of fund raising activity
took place among certain board members (I will not try to tell you that
everyone on that board was equally helpful), but it was the fact that a
separate development plan fell through that made LSE conclude that funding
was not available at this time.  They simply didn't have the ability to
cover the ongoing costs of storage until the economy recovers.


-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of Herb
Brannon
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:56 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Lake Shore Electric Ry. may auction its trolleys

I was just at the Northern Ohio Railway Museum to look at their collection
of rust last weekend. They are hoping to get two or three of the
Lakeshore/Trolleyville cars so they can begin operating their "museum".

Word is also circulating that the current owners of the ex-Trolleyville
fleet just gave up on trying to raise funds for their operation. The City of
Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority have actually
gone "above and beyond" to try to get this operation started. However, when
the ball gets in the owners court, they are either unable or unwilling to
play the game. I know, for a fact, that RTA has given a lot of kilowatt
hours of electricity and pantographs to that group so they could run some of
their double-end cars for the public on RTA revenue tracks.  I think the
owners may have thought that the city government, county government and RTA
would put it all together for them to "play" with. There has never been any
attempt to raise capital or to obtain capital to begin this project. Looks
like some more of those "business" types who don't know "business". Too bad,
it could have been a really nice operation.

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 8:35 PM, Bob Rathke <bobrathke at comcast.net> wrote:
> The following article was sent to me by a friend in Cleveland, and is
attributed to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Photos of some of the trolleys in
this article are embedded in the e-mail, but I'm not sure if they will
appear on the Dementia post.
> Bob 5/26/09
>
>
>
>      Lake Shore Electric Railway Inc. may be forced to auction 30-plus 
> trolley car collection
>
>
>
>      Many of the cars stored in Cleveland were once on display at
Trolleyville U.S.A. in Olmsted Township, which closed in 2002.
>
>
>
>
>      The PDA hand crank shows workmanship of a bygone era aboard one of
the many trolley cars being stored in a warehouse near the Great Lakes
Science Center.
>
>      Another big idea for downtown Cleveland derailed before it left the
station.
>      A nonprofit group with a warehouse full of old trolley cars is nixing
plans to build a tourist-attracting rail loop downtown and a trolley museum
nearby.
>      Instead, Lake Shore Electric Railway Inc. wants to put a 30-plus car
collection up for auction as soon as July, said Mark Ricchiuto, group
spokesman and an executive with Marous Brothers Construction.
>      Civic and elected leaders supported the project, he said. But the
economic recession stanched fund raising. The stalled Flats East Bank
project hurt as well, he said.
>      The nonprofit group wanted to build a short trolley loop near the
east bank and up through the Warehouse District, Ricchiuto said.
>      But Lake Shore Electric can't wait any longer to deal with its debts
and mounting costs, Ricchiuto said.
>
>
>
>      Seats are available on this trolley car owned by Lake Shore Electric
Railway Inc. In fact, the entire collection of trains is likely to be up for
sale soon.
>      Dennis Eckart, a former U.S. congressman and a board member for the
railway group, called the project "a bridge too far."
>      "The real value was getting them out of the museum and back on the
track," Eckart said of the trolleys. "That became a financially
insurmountable hurdle."
>      Most of the collection sits in a city-owned warehouse on Cleveland's
port, north of the Great Lakes Science Center.
>      The cars have sat for several years in the warehouse, under a
$1-a-year lease with the city of Cleveland.
>      That lease has expired, as has a lease the railway group held on a
city-owned parcel south of the sprawling municipal parking lot at East 9th
Street.
>      The group hoped to build a storage barn and museum there, at the
terminus of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's Waterfront
Line.
>      "They had a unique asset with the collection of historic trolleys,"
said Cleveland Planning Director Bob Brown. "It was worth giving it a try.
But you know how many museums come and go. It was well-intentioned, but they
weren't able to raise the money."
>      Many of the cars had once been on display in Trolleyville U.S.A. in
Olmsted Township. The late Gerald E. Brookins assembled the symbols of a
bygone era and ran some of them on a short track on weekends.
>      When Trolleyville closed in 2002, the nonprofit group formed to
preserve the cars and also crafted the downtown proposal. Chip Marous,
president of Marous Brothers, headed the effort.
>      A number of cities, including Tampa and Dallas, have drawn crowds to
rail lines featuring old trolley cars, Ricchiuto said.
>      Eckart hopes that the auction will yield enough money to restore one
or two of the cars for nostalgic use on an RTA line.
>      "But that will be driven by what the market tells us," Eckart said.
>
>
>
>
>
>



--
Herb Brannon
On America's North Coast