East Troy Electric Railroad Museum

21: The East Troy Electric Railroad Open Car

This unit is one of the line’s most popular cars. On pleasant summer days, patrons line up to ride this appealing reproduction of an 1890’s streetcar. Built by Paul Averdung in the early 1980’s, it features running gear from several sources. While its listed capacity is 48, the same as many of the larger cars, it can carry far more if the end platforms are used. Originally equipped with street railway-pattern wheels, its use was somewhat limited on the railroad-type switch frogs on the East Troy line.

In 1992, it was parked in the back of the East Troy Shop and detrucked so that the wheels and axles could be removed and sent out for rewheeling, a long process that required the fitting of standard-pattern wheels to the old axles. This outshopped work was completed only a few days before the Train To Save The Trolleys event in September 1993, and the car was quickly reassembled and then roadtested only two days before the arrival of over thirteen hundred fans in two day trips from Chicago on a 20th Century Railroad Club-operated special. On that Sunday, it rolled constantly, eight times from one end of the line to the other, packed with happy riders, for a total of over a hundred miles, carrying an estimated five hundred trippers. It continues to be everyone’s favorite on warm days.