Picture 402.

Riverfront car 460, on the inner riverbound track, waits as St. Charles car 934 rounds the turn from Carondelet Street to the outer Canal Street track.  Car 460, showing a “Not in Service” sign on its dash, will take the crossover and follow 934.  Note the Canal bus behind car 460.  The date is Saturday, August 1, 1998.  In the period 1991-1993, all 35 surviving Perley Thomas cars used on the St. Charles line, including 934 seen here, plus one of the standard-gauge Riverfront Thomas cars, were extensively rebuilt by Carrollton Station shops, with some of the work done by a firm with the improbable-sounding name Brookville Mining Equipment Corp.  Among other things, the upper windows were again fitted with square corners, giving them a look closer to the original.  The aluminum roofs from the previous rebuilding were retained; the green paint formerly applied to the roofs was initially dropped, but by 2005, car roofs were again being painted green.  One of the more obvious, though minor, differences is that the car number on the dash was painted in larger numerals.  With that project completed, Carrollton Station shops turned to the building of six complete new cars for the Riverfront line.  These were equipped with wide gauge trucks (the original Riverfront cars were standard gauge) and second hand motors and controls, but the bodies (except for 457) were completely new.  They were designed as replicas of the Perley Thomas car bodies, with the addition of wheelchair access doors.  Car 460 is a typical example of the new “ladies in red.” — © 2001 Peter Ehrlich; used with permission

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