I can announce this now since it has already happened:
CTA has reacquired PCC L cars 6101-6102 from the Fox River Trolley Museum. They picked them up last week with their own railcar carrying truck. CTA is also probably getting the 6000 pair from the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, to make a four car train. The people behind this want to be able to market charter trains using cars more historic than the 2400s, while also being able to sell more seats than those available on the two 4000s. They claim that restoration and maintenance expenses for all the historic cars are to come from charter revenue and merchandise sales.
6101-6102 never ran at FRTM, due to a request in their "title" that they not be used to carry passengers. This was after CTA had sold 6000 series cars to SEPTA where some tragedies involving those cars happened, and the lawyers found their way back to CTA. Without this restriction, 6101-6102 "could" have had trolley poles put on them and been run.
So CTA will now have:
2 4000s
4 6000s
around 8 2400s (they previously announced they were keeping)
2 2200s (the locker room cars which supposedly might have been added to the collection)
It will be interesting to see if charters and merchandise can raise enough money for all this. Most of us know what happened to the last "historic collection". The timing kind of sucks. They started all this at the time the 2400s were being retired, but too late for better 2200s. The two 1-50 cars that East Troy scrapped a few years ago also would have been a nice option. The "deaccessioning" of 6101-6102 from FRTM leaves a gap in the collection as the 6000 series cars are really more historically significant than 1-50 series cars.
CTA has reacquired PCC L cars 6101-6102 from the Fox River Trolley Museum. They picked them up last week with their own railcar carrying truck. CTA is also probably getting the 6000 pair from the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, to make a four car train. The people behind this want to be able to market charter trains using cars more historic than the 2400s, while also being able to sell more seats than those available on the two 4000s. They claim that restoration and maintenance expenses for all the historic cars are to come from charter revenue and merchandise sales.
6101-6102 never ran at FRTM, due to a request in their "title" that they not be used to carry passengers. This was after CTA had sold 6000 series cars to SEPTA where some tragedies involving those cars happened, and the lawyers found their way back to CTA. Without this restriction, 6101-6102 "could" have had trolley poles put on them and been run.
So CTA will now have:
2 4000s
4 6000s
around 8 2400s (they previously announced they were keeping)
2 2200s (the locker room cars which supposedly might have been added to the collection)
It will be interesting to see if charters and merchandise can raise enough money for all this. Most of us know what happened to the last "historic collection". The timing kind of sucks. They started all this at the time the 2400s were being retired, but too late for better 2200s. The two 1-50 cars that East Troy scrapped a few years ago also would have been a nice option. The "deaccessioning" of 6101-6102 from FRTM leaves a gap in the collection as the 6000 series cars are really more historically significant than 1-50 series cars.