Someone just mentioned the Japanese tram at OERM. I don't know the whole story, but as I recall, it went from Kyoto to an estate in Santa Barbara County. From there it came to Perris. One of its functions is to illustrate what the first electric streetcars looked like, since we don't have any Los Angeles Ry. single-truck passenger cars. And it illustrates how streetcar technology spread around the world. One of its interesting features is the Japanese "wanted criminals" poster; when I'm the conductor, I point it out to the passengers and instruct them, "Should you see any of these characters, please notify the Kyoto Police Dept. This is rather unlikely considering that the poster is over 40 years old, and people of this sort do not have great life expectancy." Another reason why the Kyoto car is at OERM and not at (for example, Seashore) is that we have what may be the only 42" gauge electric railway in North America. As far as being outside our "mission statement" and "scope of collection", as far as I'm concerned (as a member since 1963) it falls under the same "grandfather clause" as our Irish double-deck tram--having joined the collection before the term "mission statement" became part of the language. (Disclaimer: the above comments are my own, and may not be the official position of the Museum)