Preserved Steeple Cabs

How many steeple cabs are still in operation in museums?

CTA L202 still runs at FRTM.

East Troy and IRM also have steeple cabs.

A quick check of the website for the Orange Empire Railway Museum (http://www.oerm.org) reveals three:

1. Hutchinson & Northern (Kansas) #1
2. Sacramento Northern #653
3. Yakima Valley Transportation #297

The Illinois Railway Museum also rosters a number of steeplecabs:

http://www.irm.org/roster/eloco.html

The Seashore Trolley Museum rosters a couple of steeple cabs, along with box cabs and other esoteric rolling stock, found at this link:

http://home.gwi.net/trolley/collection/locomotives.html

The Hallton County Radial Railway in Milton, Ontario has this former Lake Erie and Northern steeple cab:

http://www.hcry.org/LEN335.HTM

Possibly the best place to find a listing of preserved equipment at various museums and tourist roads would be to check out Kalmbach's Tourist Trains (recreational railroading guide of steam lines, trolley museums, railroad museums, miniature and model railroads) or whatever it's called these days. While this won't give you the precise number of preserved steeple cabs, it should give you an idea of where those preserved units are on display and which MAY be operating.

Steeple cab 100 Atlantic Shore Line/York Utilities will be going to the shop for work soon. (Seashore news)

Dont Forget the Monogohala-West Penn Unit at the Pennsylvania Trolley Muesum at Arden Pa also the West Penn Homemade unit from the Connellesville Shops at the same place.

I've got 25:

Anaconda Copper 401 - Oregon Electric Railway HS
Chicago Transit Authority L202 - Fox River
Commonwealth Edison 4 - Illinois Railway Museum
Cornwall 12 - Branford
Cornwall 14 - Illinois Railway Museum
Courtauld 7 - Canadian Railway Museum
Delaware River Port Authority 404 - DRPA
Hutchinson & Northern 1 - Orange Empire
Iowa Traction 50 - IATR
Iowa Traction 51 - IATR
Iowa Traction 54 - IATR
Iowa Traction 60 - IATR
Key System 1001 - Western Railway Museum
Milwaukee Electric L4 - Illinois Railway Museum
Milwaukee Electric L7 - Illinois Railway Museum
Milwaukee Electric L8 - East Troy
Milwaukee Electric L9 - East Troy
Montreal Tramways 5002 - Branford
Oshawa 18 - Connecticut Trolley Museum
Oshawa 300 - Seashore Trolley Museum
Sacramento Northern 654 - Western Railway Museum
South Brooklyn 5 - New York Transit Museum
South Brooklyn 6 - New York Transit Museum
South Brooklyn 7 - New York Transit Museum
Yakima 297 - Orange Empire

Info from http://www.bera.org/pnaerc.html.

Frank Hicks

We have never considered Osawa 300 a steeple cab, asl 100 and the boston one are.

aline1969 wrote:We have never considered Osawa 300 a steeple cab, asl 100 and the boston one are.

I have never heard of Baldwin-Westinghouse type B's, which Oshawa 300 is an example of, being considered "non-steeplecabs." This was the standard B-W design and was built in competition to the GE standard steeplecab. One of the chief differences was that the B-W design had a longer cab and shorter hoods, but it is still technically a steeplecab. Even the B-W type B-1, which had no hoods, was generally considered a steeplecab because it kept the basic type B layout and simply dispensed with the hoods as an economy move to reduce sheet metalwork.

Frank Hicks

I will go by what our web-site says, thanks!

Whatever became of the ex Illinois Terminal Class A that was 'stranded' and Danville (IL) Power & Light when the IT cut back to DeLong? It was there in use for several years afterwards in the DP&L complex.

CTA L201 is the "secret steeplecab" parked on a disconnected track in a Michigan City, IN, industrial park about 50' off Amtrak's former MC line, the abandoned Monon, and about 1/2 mile from the South Shore. It's painted in CTA yellow but lettered for Toledo Edison.

Tadman,

Do you have a street location or cross streets of L201?

Just to chime in three years later, Seashore's older "Historic Cars" do identify 300 as a Steeple Cab. The issue of semantics on such matters fosters some great debates!

The Boston Elevated unit BTW is No. 0514. Three were built altogether, 0513 and 0514 around 1910 and 0527 about 10 years later. All are interesting in that the decks are made of junk rail welded together. This kept the center of gravity very low, but the tractive effort high.

100 (of the museum's own Atlantic Shore Line, is progressing well in its restoration. Work is in progress to place the deck back on the trucks and restore the cab.

I am pleased to report that Iowa Traction's steeplecabs are alive and kickin'! In fact, IATR 60 was in the shop for some TLC when I was there last week...

-otto-

Tadman wrote:CTA L201 is the "secret steeplecab" parked on a disconnected track in a Michigan City, IN, industrial park about 50' off Amtrak's former MC line, the abandoned Monon, and about 1/2 mile from the South Shore. It's painted in CTA yellow but lettered for Toledo Edison.

I'd like to see that!!