Mystery standard gauge interurban

John SmatlakOGR Forum Member

I recently acquired this very unusual scratch-built interurban trailer car. It was one of two being offered from the collection of the late Arno Baars. I did not know Arno Baars, but in the auction listing the seller mentioned that it came from his collection. It's 17" long and the seller mentioned it was built out of two Ives cars. The body is definitely created from a pair of something spliced together, but I'm not sure what. It sits on some very interesting scratch-built 3-axle trucks; looking like a hybrid between some old kit trucks with tinplate wheel and axles sets added. Note the opening journal box lids! The trucks also have some interesting air piping detail made with rubber tube. The ends of the car are scratch-built (each somewhat different), and there is also an interior with home-made seats, and even some cab details. It's lettered "Southern Pacific Lines" and "Chautauqua Lake Route".

The first step has been to clean the car and get it to the point where it could be run on the layout. The car appears to have been made for display only (or operating only on straight track) because the trucks hit the steps on any kind of a curve. I resolved this by moving each one back towards the center of the car about 3/4". The car had Lionel couplers installed upside down, so I turned those over and it couples just fine into other Lionel standard gauge. Next step will be to fix the interior (most of the seats had come loose) and install some lighting.

Of course if anyone has any info on this car or theories on the person who may have built it, I'd love to hear about it. I'm guessing there were not too many people doing traction layouts in standard gauge, would have liked to have seen the pike it was built for!

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7/21/1811:25 PM

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GuitarmikeOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER

That is one very cool car!!

A lot of the old standard gauge passenger cars look like they could be kitbashed into an interurban, I had an old Dorfan passenger car just waiting for a trolley pole and a power truck. I never did find a power truck that would work and my dream of a standard gauge trolley empire was never fulfilled.

I think there were some articles in the early Model Railroaders featuring standard gauge traction, I think one of them ran outside.

7/21/1811:43 PM

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SteamerOGR Forum Member

I like it, looks well done.

7/22/1812:19 AM

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AdriaticOGR Forum Member

Nice find.

A pole vs pant and I'd have a Cinci & Lake Erie Red Devil

7/22/1812:28 AM

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GuitarmikeOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER

John,

I can tell you a little about that car. The two ports above the end doors are mu ports, a lot of interurban cars had them up top like that. The round tube on the four corner doors are marker lights. Your car has roof mats at each end, these were used to protect the roof if a trolley pole came slamming down on it. The brass rail below the mats was used to protect the roof from the retriever rope. Trolley poles had rope attached to them so the motorman could raise and lower the pole as necessary, the retriever was a spring loaded device used to wind up the rope when the pole was lowered. Too band you did not get both cars, I wonder if the other one was powered?

7/22/187:31 AM

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Dennis HollerOGR Forum Member

Very cool car. The trucks look like they are made from a pair of 4 wheel early Lionel Std trucks like form an 18 or 19 passenger car. I really like creations like this. The scale modelers turn their noses at them and many collectors do too. They are not scale and many times are very crudely built. On the other hand, they have a certain charm and show creativity as well. It's refreshing to know someone took the time and in many cases some considerable effort to put one together. Sometimes the best part is that you can get them fairly cheap if no one else thinks they are worth anything. A while back I picked up this home made STD Hiawatha which is probably more crudely made and anything I can imagine. It's a cheese box wood frame with multiple layers of thin sheet metal and nothing is glued, it's all hammered together with small brads. The Motor is from AF as are the trucks. The design for the vestibules if neat too. It works but the train needs a lot of work obviously. The Motor was installed so it would swivel like a 616 streamliner except the lead and trail trucks don't articulate so that is a problem. All that aside, I can appreciate that someone put in a considerable amount of work to build it. Someday..

I love that interurban, it's a great find and very unique!

I have to imagine there were tons and tons of this stuff made in basements over the years, but I'll bet a high percentage of them found their way into the trash which is a shame.