Edwards is VERY proud to report that the Bay Creek Railway, Virginia Beach, VA., has place an order for FIVE self-propelled rail cars! This is the single largest of order of cars our firm has received since 1925!
Please visit: www.edwardsrailcar.com for updates. The first two cars will be delivered to Bay Creek Rwy. Feb 1st, 2007.

I hardly think it's possible for me to correct the horse's mouth, but......

.... are you sure you're not referring to the Bay COAST Railroad, which acquired the forner Eastern Shore Railroad between Norfolk/Little Creek and Pocomoke City, Md., including the Cape Charles-Little Creek car float, and which has centered its planning around tourist operations/shuttles to and from the now-booming tourist town of Cape Charles?

Conradulations Sir Torrico!!!

You are absolutly correct. I was told two days ago that the plan on calling the tourist operation..."Bay Creek Railway".

Are the cars now equipped for FRA-compliant collision protection, or is the line considered as self-contained for equipment / insular (as in the WVC)?

Unless Mr. Foster (the new operator of the line, which is, I believe, still owned by a quasi-governmental two-county agency in Virginia) did something massive and unprecedented such as shut down the freight operation with plans to abandon 64 miles of track he doewsn't need, there's no way that line can be insular. It crosses several roads, including the main US highway of the Delmarva Peninsula.

Randy: the interurban cars that we are turning into doodlebugs are historic, all built prior to 1914.

Several of them are going to be set up for dining car service.

It is confusing. The site implies that Edwards builds new rail cars, but the details all describe rebuilds or modifications of old carbodies.

I question the validity of the safety exemption, since the amount of original material is very small in these cars. The cars are really new equipment with a small portion of old body framework and interior fittings.

What did you use for the Cheat Mountain Salamander? I thought they (the operator) said it was new construction. You did build that one, didn't you?

What kind of cars are you using for source material for the bodies?

Our firm builds cars new, Cheat Mountain Slamander, we also can turn an interurban car into being self-propelled...as in the customer we have now. They want old historic cars not new construction. for the two cars we have now, for Bay Creek, would be a Southern Traction car No.316, North Texas Traction car No.407. Original MCB traction trucks are being rehabed. All of the car bodies and interiors are original historic equipment. Sorry for the confusion on the website. We will work towards getting that changed. Thanks for pointing that out.

What, exactly, does this sort of conversion have to do with "preservation" of thesehistoric interurban cars? The answer cannot simply be that doing so allows them to continue to exist, since they exist anyway, and nobody seems to be claiming that they would have been scrapped if not subjected to such changes, as opposed to being restored or even rebuilt into a replica of a local operator's now-extinct fleet.

Put another way, would the railway preservation movement still tolerate today a historic steam locomotive being gutted out and converted to chain-drive diesel power, as was done years ago at Calgary (I believe), resulting in the effective destruction of the artifact ? Or how about another Pacific Electric car grafted onto a truck chassis, with rubber tires and a steering wheel? (Is what's left of that one still around?) What's the difference between these examples, and what Edwards proposes to do to the interurban cars at issue here?

Let's avoid a simplistic discussion of people being able to do what they want with their own property. By that standard, I may destroy a Rembrant masterpiece as long as it's mine. Preservationists, or groups and individuals aspiring to share their public perception and credibility, really cannot have it both ways. Either the historic equipment is being preserved with its integrity intact (whether or not this also involves overhaul or restoration), or it's not. If it's not, it seems to me that it's not "railway preservation." It's not a question of absolute accuracy, either - Strasburg may take a few non-authentic liberties to ensure the continued structural integrity of its wooden coaches, for example, but the overall impression and feel compares with the best museum work.

But if, instead, the standard is a more flexible one in which anything goes, then why not Pullman cars or cabooses deliberately gutted (read "ruined") for motel accommodations, steam locomotives "adaptively reused", etc., etc.? Does Edwards get credit from preservationists for what it's doing, or is it something the preservation movement should oppose ? (I point out, as well, that this forum is not entitled the "Light Rail is Good" News, or the "Let's Get Tourists Off the Highways" Interchange ....

G.J. Churchward

"Or how about another Pacific Electric car grafted onto a truck chassis, with rubber tires and a steering wheel? (Is what's left of that one still around?)"

Pacific Electric car, #1058, on rubber tires was never grafted onto a truck chassis. It was more like the truck drive train was mounted to the car. It drove around the Los Angeles area for parades and such for many years. It has since been re-converted to rail service with trucks and motors aquired from Japan. The car is in service on the Port of Los Angeles Waterfront Red Car Line.

Pure preservation, certainly not - but very little preservation is pure. I sure don't want to use 1880 home-made paint and replace it every two years.

Most of these carbodies, at least the ones I know about, have lived lives as chicken coops and tool sheds longer than as railroad cars.

There is no shortage of examples of cars being converted from motorized into trailers, or the other way around. One Georgia shortline motorized a single truck Birney car!

I'd much prefer the carbodies be adaptively reused as railroad cars than continue to rot a chicken coops, even if not in exactly their original configuration. Once gone, they are lost, but even saved as motorcars they can be reconverted at some point in the future if there is any need for it.

dave

As long as the original material is conserved, I see no problem in the various incarnations of revived rail cars. Cars that are "preserved" in operating museums are losing much of their original fabric every year, so the form of current configuration of operation is no guarantee of "preservation". As long as material is not destroyed, disfigured, or discarded, then anything is possible.

The Minnesota Streetcar Museum has original Twin Cities car 1300 in service almost every year. This car was taken out of service complete and has remained stored protected or in service continuously since then. However, the original fabric is slowly fading away. There are obvious things such as wiring, and less obvious things. For example, way back in the 1980's we had to replace the rear step well due to rust. The old step well had electrical heaters, resistance mounted on porcelan, attached to the backs of the steps. I don't think we replicated that feature on the replacement steps.

I love this museum dearly, and I don't see any (cost effective) alternative that allows an operating interpretive exhibit, but there is a loss to following generations. So, there is a positive side to the cars which are encased in glass at places like the Smithsonian, and when the decision is made to operate or exercise a historic rail car, it will lose some of its fabric over time, regardless of the specific operating configuration.