I'm looking for information on the Magee Transportation Museum, which was located in Bloomsburg PA. The Magee Transportation Museum was a short-lived trolley museum that was part of the transportation museum. It was established around 1965 and stopped operations in 1972 due to hurricane Agnes and was privately owned. The owner, Harry Magee, then passed away in October of 1972 and the family decided not to reopen the museum, instead choosing to sell everything at an auction in June 1973.

I know where most of the trolley cars are at today but I did have a couple questions regarding a few of the cars that were at Magee and what has happened with them.

Does anyone know what has happened to Lehigh Valley Transit freight motor C15? This car was a former passenger car on the LVT. It was used as an advertising display along route 80 at Magee. This car was acquired from the Broad Street Subway in Philadelphia with the plan to use the running gear and control equipment for passenger car 801 of the same series.

Whatever happened to this freight motor car body? Last report was that it just a few miles away from the museum unprotected from the weather. Has the car been scrapped? Did mother nature take care of the car over the many years it sat outside and the remains just hauled away? If anyone knows the final disposition of the car I would be interested in hearing about it.

After Magee closed, Lehigh Valley Transit 801 was moved to various locations. I heard the car was moved to the King of Prussia area after Magee closed and was stored in a warehouse. From there I believe the car went to Dushore, PA where Ed Blossom established the Dushore Car Company and restored the car to the appearance it is today. Can anyone confirm all of this? Does anyone have any photos or information for LVT car 801 after it left Magee before it arrived at Topton, PA in November 1977.

While not trolley car related, does anyone have any information on some of the other exhibits, automobiles carriages and other antiques that were housed at Magee and what has happened to them. Records of the auction do not seem to exist.

Thanks for any help.

Joel Salomon

You posted in this thread so I am sure you know about it: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37803

The last poster in that thread, BerwickRailFan, said he visited its last known location and couldn't find any remains. Has anyone tried the direct approach, locating the landowners and asking them about the car? Unless someone does so no one will have any direct information. Say a family member in their twenties in the 1970s would be in their sixties or seventies now, but I would think someone would remember an interurban car decaying on their land.

That is what i am hoping for, someone knowing something about the car and it's demise I agree, that someone would have noticed the car on their property or in the area. But being almost 50 years ago does not help.

I was able to go to Magee just once before the flood. One of the more interesting exhibits was a large carpet specially woven to show the Magee carpet factory that 'paid for' the whole thing.

I was told that the floodwaters came up more than a couple of feet high -- ISTR 8' high -- in that location, and persisted for the usual length of time in that area, so most of the collection was effectively ruined. What the water did not do, the fine mud finished.

I was only nine years old when the flood occurred. My memory is of the trolley ride. But I have never seen a photo of carpet exhibit in the hundreds of Magee photos that I have.

LVT 801 is in the Electric City Museum in Scranton. To save a lot of writing, here's ECTM's writeup on the car:

"Car #801 (Jewett Car Co., 1912) is one of the famed "Liberty Bell Route" trolleys that ran between Allentown and Philadelphia. Twelve cars of this classic type, with separate baggage and passenger sections and arched "stained-glass" windows, were delivered from the Jewett factory in Newark, Ohio in two orders. Lightweight, high-speed cars replaced these large interurbans on LVT rails in 1939. Car #801 became a cottage carbody, while LVT converted other cars in the series into freight trolleys. The carbody of #801 has been preserved and thoroughly restored. It will be re-equipped with mechanical apparatus from sister car #808, which became freight trolley #C-15 and then outlived LVT as rubbish car #T-18 on Philadelphia's Broad St. subway."

They opened LVT's new route to 69th St. Terminal in Upper Darby, where they connected with the Market St. Subway-Elevated. This route used the Philadelphia and Western (today SEPTA's Norristown HSL) between Norristown and 69th St.

As it states above LVT C-15 (ex-808) was the parts donor to 801. Ed Blossom did some "2 to make 1" restorations.

Phil Mulligan

Sorry so late to this topic, but I just came across a few old photos of Liberty Bell 801 from Dushore, PA. I worked for two summers with Ed Blossom and others on the trolley restoration in Dushore. The attached picture in not very good quality, but it does show the Dushore railroad station and car 801, probably 1975. That's me standing to the left with my sister, and Bill Cluley standing by the Vulcan(?) locomotive that we used to move the car around. Typewritten note at top of page is from Ed to my father, Dr. Tom Shoemaker.

informative site showing disposition of the Magee collection.

http://www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc.pl?s ... mit=SUBMIT

bob miller

801 is at the ECTM in Scranton, PA. She is about 80% restored (static) and is safely housed indoors.