The Streetcar/Trolley/Tram/Electric Railway Thread

[Swing Motorman]

2011: A Year in Historic Streetcar Preservation

As we move into the new year, I thought I'd look back at my year's worth of experiences in the vintage trolley world, mostly around the Rockhill Trolley Museum.

February gathering at Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

Early Spring: 1936 Philadelphia subway 1009 is moved outside, to make room for...

The arrival of NJ Transit's heritage-painted 1946 car number 6.

Late Spring: Getting to work cleaning and repairing 6.

In shabby half-cleaned paint, the car runs for the first time in 10 years, carrying only museum members.

At the same Members' Day, the incredible Liberty Liner makes a surprise return to operable condition and gives rides to thrilled members.

Summer: With crowds distracted by the neighboring steam railroad's Thomas the Tank Engine "circus," I put up a vintage-style hang sign offering a more practical service on this scorching summer day. We even allowed sno-cones on the trolleys!

NJT 6 is primed for its complete repainting and restoration.

Mid-August: Two TV stations visited on the same day: WFMZ and WITF (pictured).


[continued in next post]

 

[Swing Motorman]

[continued]

6 is fully restored! The paint was probably still wet in this 1:00AM shot the morning of its dedication. (This is the full image from which I got my current avatar).

October: Fall Spectacular turns the museum into a busy place, as 5 cars meet at the passing siding.

November: the enormous 1909 Chicago suburban car received a new roof!

December: the Christmas lights are up for the annual Polar Bear Express night operation.

Santa visits with anyone who rides the trolley on the first Saturday of December.

A Philadelphia trolley preservation group charters a New Years' excursion each year over the city's contemporary trolley network.


It's been a great year, but then, most years in this hobby are great ones. I'm thankful I get to participate in such a busy living history scene. Visit your local streetcar museum and be a part of the story!


-Steven

 

[Dinerman]

Trolleys converted to diners in Maryland. All long gone.

 

[randooch]

Steven, your enthusiasm is infectious and your pics appreciated. If ever in the PA area, I'll drop in for a tour.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Steven, your enthusiasm is infectious and your pics appreciated. If ever in the PA area, I'll drop in for a tour.

Thank you for your kind words, Randall! That's the best compliment I've heard in a long while (especially considering how I occasionally worry that I'm contributing too much trolley talk to the Lounge!) Yes, I do get quite enthusiastic around the museum. I even had to buy throat lozenges for when I wear my voice out talking with visitors! ("This is the world's first high-speed rail vehicle... and there's arguably the most successful transit vehicle ever designed... and this one's been to Portugal and back...")

And Dinerman, those are some neat diners there. A few trolley preservationists (me included) actually enjoy seeing what people do with streetcar bodies after they're retired, although the diehard railbuffs rarely appreciate it. Some at my museum even want to get a trolley-turned-cabin, move it to the museum, and display it still set up as a house. I think it'd be neat, and a serviceable trolley diner would be even neater!


-Steven

 

[Espee]

Why does the PCC #6 have the odd-shaped windshield? Nothing worth seeing in that direction?

 

[St.Ignatz]

Nice shot of the Boozer Cruiser (Liberty Liner) Motorman. I had my first underage over the bar beer on one of them served by Mister Wilson. A quick sprint from 69th St. to Ardmore Jct. left me looking down a long flight of steps to the former Ardmore trolley right of way.
Tom D.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Why does the PCC #6 have the odd-shaped windshield? Nothing worth seeing in that direction?

That's some food for thought, why St. Louis Car Co. designed them that way... [huh] *thinking* Well, for one, the operator is on the left (relative to looking out the windshield from inside), so you rarely look out that curved windshield pane anyway. And curving it allows more room for the doors. PCC streetcars were built with loads of different windshields over the years, (much to the chagrin of anyone looking to replace or repair one...)

Nice shot of the Boozer Cruiser (Liberty Liner) Motorman. I had my first underage over the bar beer on one of them served by Mister Wilson. A quick sprint from 69th St. to Ardmore Jct. left me looking down a long flight of steps to the former Ardmore trolley right of way.
Tom D.

Ha, that's quite the nickname! The day the Liner was running, we paid homage to the famous bar car (the only car currently with a restored interior), by hauling a barrel-shaped cooler of [I think] iced tea aboard, just so we could say the bar was open and serving drinks!

Hope you made it down the steps at Ardmore Jct. OK.


-Steven

 

[Propeller Planes]

Steven, and all the other Aussies here

I hail from Australia, and also have a strong interest in old streetcars, or as we call them here, trams. I've visited many Tram museums across Australia, however, the one particular streetcar which I have the most softest spot for is the American PCCs, which I fell in love with when I got to ride them in Philadelphia in 2006 and later on in San Francisco.

Thankfully, one PCC car also is preserved and operates here in Australia, PCC 1014, ex San Francisco, operates at the Sydney Tramway Museum, and I thought I'd share some shots of it:








The thing I find most exciting about this vehicle is the old San Francisco ads which have remained inside, as pictured above!

The rest of the photos from the museum can be found on my Flickr site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maikhaly/sets/72157626879298892/
I'm in the process of sorting and uploaded photos from other tramway and railway museum photos as I get the time.

Look forward to sharing more things from the Land Downunder!

Enjoy
Props'

 

[Haversack]

Propeller Planes wrote: "Thankfully, one PCC car also is preserved and operates here in Australia, PCC 1014, ex San Francisco, operates at the Sydney Tramway Museum,..."

Well, that's only fair. San Francisco's Market Street Railway operates one of Melbourne's classic W-Class trams.
http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/496/

Haversack.

 

[Stanley Doble]

You can still ride in a classic PCC streetcar in Toronto, the celebrated Red Rockets.

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4509.shtml

Toronto has an exemplary transit system including buses, streetcars and subway trains. Mostly modern but they still have two of the old PCC cars which were built in Canada and have been in service since 1938.

 

[Stanley Doble]

For the real gone trolley fans the Halton County Radial Railway museum is a must.

http://www.hcry.org/

 

[seabass]

Nice thread Swing Motorman !
i see your scanning is constintant ! that mirror on the #6 car, you really have to stay on it for your right side clearance.
the car # 6 is 8''wider than most PCC cars except Torpedos (double-enders) which are longer too, & that swingout can be a problem.
I am a training instructor In SF for the F line. We call your # 6 car, 1070 series or brookville cars,, watch those rear doors if you activate the deadman... ! Great Posts there

 

[DNO]

I spent many an hour in my youth riding Toronto's PCC streetcars. They've been replaced with rumbling monsters, but I thought I'd share a streetcar photo I found in the Toronto archives. Recruiting for WW1, 1916 or so.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Nice thread Swing Motorman !
i see your scanning is constintant ! that mirror on the #6 car, you really have to stay on it for your right side clearance.
the car # 6 is 8''wider than most PCC cars except Torpedos (double-enders) which are longer too, & that swingout can be a problem.
I am a training instructor In SF for the F line. We call your # 6 car, 1070 series or brookville cars,, watch those rear doors if you activate the deadman... ! Great Posts there

Well, good to hear from someone on the F-Line! That's one of few places where you can see true American streetcars running as they were meant to be run (anyone who's not familiar with it should stop by www.streetcar.org and check it out.)

It's rather funny, seabass, I've had the good fortune to work on and operate the kinds of streetcars that compose most of the F-Line fleet. Of course from NJ Transit, I've worked extensively with #6 and I'm planning to help out with #10, a car that will be going West once we fix it up a little here in the Northeast. Then a lot of my friends are very involved in Philadelphia trolley preservation, so I've gotten to run a pair of SEPTA's 1980's rebuilt PCCs, or the 1050s in MUNI-talk. Wish I could say the same for the Torpedos, but the closest I've seen is rotten old Red Arrow Lines #23, in storage in central PA.

Being an instructor must be interesting on the F-Line. Do you know if MUNI is still looking for operators? I've thought hard about heading for San Fran and looking for a job with them, because transportation is the sort of business I can work longest, hardest, and proudest at. Is the cost of living really that bad in the area? Because MUNI sure is an impressive operation... from what I've seen, you seem miles ahead of most Eastern U.S. transit operations.


-Steven

 

[seabass]

Swing Motorman
tough job being a operator in SF.
& cost of living is tough, here is a link
http://www.jobaps.com/SF/specs/classspecdisplay.asp?ClassNumber=9163&R1=undefined&R3=undefined

 

[Swing Motorman]

On a personal note, thank you for sharing that-- I'll keep it in mind as I finish out college.

And for the sake of the thread here, that's a great resource to show what a tough job public transit is! we should all make an effort to be kind to the operators, they go through a lot more than you think.


-Steven

 

[Trombone]

It's great to see an old Twin Cities Rapid Transit PCC still soldering on, not in original colors, but nontheless restored. Those PCC's from TCRT have a special history because they were the only trolleys not homebuilt in St. Paul after the introduction of the "Tom Lowery's".

Here's a sister to your PCC restored to it's TCRT paint, currently running on the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line for the Minnesota Streetcar Museum

-in fact this picture is from Rockhill's website.

And not to rub the wrong way, but you guys need one of these

one of a kind St. Paul built "Streetcar Boat" The Minnehaha (heck, the workmen at the Snelling Shops in St. Paul built streetcars, so they said "lets put a streetcar on a boat!") - and that how you get this

A wave from the local grade crossing flagman

 

[Swing Motorman]

It's great to see an old Twin Cities Rapid Transit PCC still soldering on, not in original colors, but nontheless restored. Those PCC's from TCRT have a special history because they were the only trolleys not homebuilt in St. Paul after the introduction of the "Tom Lowery's".

Here's a sister to your PCC restored to it's TCRT paint, currently running on the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line for the Minnesota Streetcar Museum

-in fact this picture is from Rockhill's website.

Mmmmm, TCRT #322... I adore that paint scheme (yellow is my favorite color)! Trolley museums have a wonderful spirit of cooperation, so Rockhill and Minnesota Streetcar Museum shared information in #6's (originally #325 at TCRT) restoration, and now both museums host each other's TCRT/NJ Public Service PCCs on their websites.

Now that's quite the boat there. Built in a streetcar shop, you say? Wow. And another delightfully tasteful paint scheme! You folks from the Twin Cities sure know how to paint a vehicle.

And not to miss the interesting Toronto picture from DNO. That's some interesting decoration on the old "breezer" open car, but I do wonder if calling the Great War a "trip" is touching on misleading advertising... Great bit of history!


I just added yet another reproduction badge to my collection. With a bit of cut & paint finishing work on an engraved aluminum plate, I have a Baltimore Transit Co. badge now. I think this is my 7th badge? Wow, time flies.

-Steven

 

[Trombone]

Now that's quite the boat there. Built in a streetcar shop, you say? Wow. And another delightfully tasteful paint scheme! You folks from the Twin Cities sure know how to paint a vehicle.

It is the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", even streetcars need to go over water sometimes