To my knowledge, the Burlington Zephyrs and the Rock Island Rockets were articulated passenger train sets. Was there a ready means by which a passenger could walk from one car into another and back again while the train was moving? I would think so.
I ask because modern day Toronto subway cars are articulated, and they also have no doors at the end, such that passengers cannot move internally from car to car.
RJ Emery near Santa Fe, NM
Of course. All articulated train sets allowed passage between cars. Articulation in compact train sets was the thing to have, in the early years of the streamline era. Not only Burlington, and Rock Island, but UP, IC, and others had articulated trains as well. Even sets of Pullman equipment were articulated, like matching cars Bear Flag - California Republic ( originally Advance - Progress ) once on the Treasure Island Special, then the Arizona Limited and then The Lark.
Don't forget "The Green Diamond", ugliest diesel ever built. So ugly it's classic!
Yes.
There was a book, well illustrated, photographically, about the first Zephyrs....Google, Amazon, Ron's Books.
Your definition, whatever it is, of articulation guides answers about further detail. SP had some 2 units on three trucks psgr coaches on the Coast Daylight; had some 3 units on 4 trucks, called the Cascade Club cars, which were lounge, kitchen and dining cars. And then there were the C,NS&M Electroliners, two units on three trucks.
People moved between and among them.
If articulated means that a drawbar, instead of a connection between cars that can be manually operated (a coupler), I've been on the EMD FTs, drawbar connected A and B units, that the Northern Pacific kept alive to the mid 1960's and walking from one to the other....doors at the end of the units, metal spring loaded matching adjoining platforms and great canvas covered accordion-like tubes over the platforms through which you walked.
The walkways, platform and canvas tube, were called diaghrams and were used between conventional cars, too.
Some variant was used between and among the other passenger pioneers.
One more ride, way out there! _ _ . _
One advantage of articulation was a slight reduction in the weight of a train--instead of each car sitting on two trucks, each car, except for the end car, shared a truck with the car next to it, so the overall arrangement gave a truck number equal to the number of cars, plus one, unlike having twice as many trucks as there were cars. The first lightweight trains had all of the cars in each train articulated. You can see the first diesel-powered streamlined articulated train in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. The first streamlined articulated train was powered with a distillate engine, and it was sacrificed to World II.
Properly, the diaphragm was the canvas which extended from a car and ended in a buffer; the buffer was matched to the buffer on the next car's diaphragm. This arrangement reduced exposure to weather when one passed from one car to the next. For several years, full-width diaphragms were popular, with the diaphragm extending from one side to the other of the car; in later years, these were discontinued and the diaphragms covered only a passageway--and cars built with wide diaphragms were refitted with the narrow diaphragms. Incidentally, the best-built diaphragms leaked.
Johnny
RJ Emery, the new Toronto Rocket subway cars are not articulated (although they are connected by drawbars) nor have anything blocking the diaphragms. You are correct in that the fully wide cabs do not allow passage from one set of cars to another. Some pictures might help?
Interior
Exterior
Front
The TRs don't look as good as the cars they are replacing, imho. They look like bus winshields.
Hope this helps,
NW
The full-width diaphragms on non-articulated lighweight cars were for show only, and in many cases were converted to the regular type just by cutting out the excess material, steel and canvass, and leaving the central portion in place. The actual passegeway from car to car was the same as with convenitonal diaphragms, and there was zero problem for a full-width to meet a standard with in service, and this hapened many times.
My memory says the Electroliners were and are four bodies on five trucks. Great trains. Loved them.
Brill had an articulated joint that was used on Wasington Baltimore & Annapolis interurbans, as well as the articulated cars rebuilt from two standard cars by Milwaukee Electric and some other midwestern roads. Chicago Surface Lines built a three truck car from two older cars using the Brill joint as well.
Perhaps the earliest joint was the center section from Boston Elevated Railway's "two rooms and a bath" cars.
Was not the Brill joint also used on the BMT "C-Types," even though they were not articulated, just trucks very close to the ends of the meeting cars (3 cars permantly connected, two motors and a shorter center trailer, but six trucks total), and also the articulated Euclid Avenue Cleveland 5000's?
I don't know about the BMT C types. The Cleveland 5000s were built by Kuhlman and most likely had the Brill joint applied under license, the same arrangement as the WB&A cars. Chicago's 5001-5004 PCC articulateds had full width joints designed by Pullman and St Louis Car. By the time they were built the Brill patents had expired anyway.
UP, Burlington and Rock Island had articulated cars that made up part of a train, usually in two car sets, though UP had some longer strings and one of RI's was three cars. SP had a fairly large fleet of two-unit coaches along with the three-unit lounge-kitchen-diner sets built for the Lark, the Daylights and the Cascade. Some of the SP coaches even saw Amtrak service in the 1970s in plain stainless steel with "Amtrak" and a 7500 series number in a blue block on the side.
Many european trams have full-width articulated joints, as do some U.S. "Light Rail Vehicles".
This is a note to the NP FT units. The A & B and the C&D units (one cab and one booster respectively) had solid drawbars between the two units while the B&C units had regular couplers.
I asked the late John Sincowski, an NP Locomotive Foreman, who worked at Auburn, Washington (where the FT's were stationed) if one could uncouple the solid connection between the A&B and C&D and he said that yes they could but it was quite a job to remove said solid drawbar..
The only two NP FT's to come to the BN in 1970 were mismatched units.
Ed Burns
Retired :NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Northtown.
Let's not forget about the Key System's Bridge Units!
An odd part about the Electroliners is that each half was considered one car, and each half had a different number, despite the halves sharing a truck and being inseparable.
Firelock76 Don't forget "The Green Diamond", ugliest diesel ever built. So ugly it's classic!
I always featured that the Green Diamond was a clone of the UP's M10000; just like the Pioneer Zephyr and Flying Yankee were virtual clones of each other. I never considered the M10000 a beauty contest winner.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The Chicago Transit Authority had four three-unit, four-truck articulated carsets on its roster: 5001-5004, later renumbered 51-54. They were ordered by Chicago Rapid Transit Company and were delivered in silver with red trim.
doesn't one survive at IRM-Union?
daveklepper doesn't one survive at IRM-Union?
Indeed it does.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter