I’m pretty familiar with PCC streetcars that have been resold for service on other lines over the years, such as those that wound up in Newark, Shaker Heights, Toronto and other places. Are there any other examples of rapid transit equipment being resold for service on other lines beside the CTA 6000 series cars that were sold to SEPTA and operated on the Norristown line?
Electric cars for street, suburban and interurban service were very widely resold for service on other systems, and there are numerous examples throughout the history of electric traction. The practice was particularly common in the 1930’s, as traction lines were going out of business at the same time that other traction lines were seeking to get relatively modern equipment at bargain prices. The Lehigh Valley Transit system (Philadelphia-Allentown, with various suburban services in the Allentown area) almost compeletely reequipped itself with second hand equipment in the late 30’s, including relatively new “Red Devil” lighweights from the Cincinnati & Lake Erie and Indiana RR (regretably, only one car from the latter). CRANDIC in Iowa also acquired cars from C&LE and IRR. . CA&E in Chicago acquired cars from the WB&A in Maryland. PE in Los Angeles acquired equipment from San Francisco bay area commuter services (all of which were part of the SP familiy). Shaker Heights had second hand pre-PCC equipment frlom several properties. Some equipment was even resold multiple times, (for example, some of the AE&FR lightweights in Illinois were first resold to Shaker Heights and then resold to Milwaukee Speedrail). There are plenty of other examples.
There has also been some movement of light rail transit (LRT) equipment in modern times between properties. I’m not sure of this, but I believe the original San Jose LRT cars are being resold
New York Westchester and Boston mu’s were demotored and replaced the last of the wood New Haven Boston commuter cars. (Then were replaced by reseated hevyweight parlor cars) LIRR postwar mu’s ran in Staten Island for a brief period, and Staten Island cars ran on the BMT in regular subway service. Boston Revere Beach and Lynn narrow gauge electrified open platform cars were de-motored and ran in Hawai and on the White Pass and Yukon.
Don’t forget the use of the two Electroliners (North Shore) as Red Arrow Norristown Line Liberty Liners. And the currrent equipment on Staten Island Rapid Transit is relocated NY Subway R44 equipment slightly modified, now the only R44’s (75 foot cars) in regular service, since the subway’s R44’s are retired. (Much older Budd 60-ft R32’s still running!) Overseas, relocated London tube stock, the low small trains used in the Underground, are providing a sort of rapid transit service on the third rail equpped line on the Isle of Wight. Some former East Block cities are using second hand German “Statbahn” cars in underground-surface operations. After WWII, a special articulated but only eight-wheeled streetcar - light rail car was developed for Stuttgart’s vast meter gauge tram system, which at the same time began putting critical heavy traffic downtown routes underground. This was a very inventive and successful design, and Frankfort and other cities with narrow gauge lines bought the same design. But all Stuttgart’s underground tunnels were built dual gauge, in case the future brought standard gauge conversion. About ten years after the first subway opened, the conversion of the first lines began, and at the same time, the stations for these lines began to have partial length high platforms installed, so level floor loading would be possible for the standard gauge cars and low-platform loading for the narrow gauge cars. Now narrow gauge is restricted to one museum operation out of the one car house used also as a tram (and bus) museum, and the entire system uses modern standard gauge articulated cars, running as one, two, or three-car trains. But their narrow gauge equipment has not been scrapped, but can be seen in Polish, Check, Rumanian, Hungarian, and East Germain narrow-gauge systems. Along with cars from Frankfort. Stuttgart is an example of a streetcar, a tram system, evolving into a real rapid-tra