How about a little humor, for a change?!

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/23151

I don't know how many of RYPN's readers have ever checked out the website of Roadside America. It is devoted to the offbeat, to kitsch, and eccentric attractions (muffler men; sock monkeys and a pair of Elvis' underwear; the Idaho Potato Museum, etc). The article in the link above is about a houseboat with a section of a former NWP passenger car now built into part of a houseboat. Not a form of preservation some might like, but interesting in some sense.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Back in th elate 19th century; there was a houseboat fleet in Tiburon, CA north of San Francisco. They called them Arks.

One of the used a group of four retired cable cars as the living quarters. There is a photo of the boat in the new book by Phil Frank. What a story!

TM.

Twenty years ago Invention and Technology (I believe) magazine had a feature about houses in San Francisco containing partial or complete cable cars. Anyone know the latest status of these?

At least one such house survives. It is part of what was called "Carville," an area where many obsolete cars (cable and horse cars mainly) were assembled into a small community.

Here's one article about the house:
http://www.outsidelands.org/sw19.php

A couple of photos of Carville:
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccsf.html#Carville

A book is going to be published soon about Carville:
http://richmondsfblog.com/blog/2009/09/22/new-book-recalls-citys-forgotten-streetcar-suburb/

One explanation of why a deckhouse on a ship is called the "caboose" is that the Erie Railroad donated the 1st one to Admiral Perry to use during his voyage to the North Pole. It had been a 4 wheeler and had circular end windows. Someone published a set of 4 drawings of famous cabooses, and Admiral Perry's Erie 4 wheeler was one of them. I think 2 others in the series were the one that Casey Jones hit, and the site of the founding meeting of one of the railroad Brotherhoods (Brakemen's Union?).

Shorpy had an interesting pic from 1921.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/6760

The car on the house boat was built by the Carter Bros. It sill has its body bolster... along with other parts needed by a railroad car, but not needed by a room on a house boat, and has been a source of information about Carter standard gauge building practice (more consistent with national (i.e. MCB) practice than that used on their narrow gauge cars. The owners are private but have allowed some exploration...

Damn... that gives WHOLE new meaning to the phrase "streetcar suburb"! LOL!

An article in the Toronto Sun a week or two ago by Mike Filey, talked about the TTC donating some old Streetcars to a Northern Ontario town to be used as tempory shelters after a fire burnt the place to the ground back in the 20's