Conduit for streetcar operation

[daveklepper]

 

and 631 was also originally a 59th street car.   626-645

646 - 685 poles fot The Bronx

[rcdrye]

daveklepper

I think the plow carrier was remvoed from operating 629

I'm pretty sure sister 631 is also missing a plow hanger.

[daveklepper]

All my pit pictures were taken at the Georgetown Pit on the Cabin John ("20") line.

Third Avenue had only one operating pit after the 125th Street - Willis Avenue (Bronx) line was convereted to buses before WWII to permit consdtruction of the Tri-Boro Bridge.  That closed pit was at 1st AVenue and 126th Street.  The remaining Third Avenue pit, in use until August 1947, was at 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, used by the 149th Street Crosstown X  and until June 29 1947 by the Broadway-145th Street every-45-miniutes one-car franchise line, that changed from conduit to trolley-pole just to reach its trailing crossver to reverse.

The last Manhattan all-conduit lines, the "K" Kingsbridge-Broadway-125th Street line, with put-in pull-out moves down 3rd Avenue to the 65th Street main carhouse and shop, quite 29 June 1947.   The Bronx saw streetcars until the 1952 closure of the Yonkers lines that entered The Bronx to reach the subways (on existing elevated structures) at Woodlawn (Yonkers "4"), and B'way-242-Van Courtdland Park (Yonkers 1, 2, 3).  PCCs  in Broolyn till 1954, QBridge 1957.

Shore Line Trolley at East Haven has a conduit plow on display in a display case.

I think the plow carrier was remvoed from operating 629, originally a conduit-only 1939-home-built 59th Street Crosstown car, used Sundays on 42nd Street and November 1946-March 1947 on Thrid and Amsterdam Avenue, either by Third Avenue or when it was operated in Vienna 1948-1967.

[rcdrye]

Assuming Maine ever reopens I'll try to get under DC T 1304 this summer to get a photo.  The plow hanger is still there even after the car went to GE for propulsion equipment experiments.  The shop guys at Seashore have a pretty good idea how to fix a troublesome electrical problem, so it's hoped 1304 will be "live" by the end of the year.

Some of DC Transit's slot-equipped trackage was originally set up for cable traction, but all of it was eventually rebuilt with a deeper slot.  New York's Broadway and Third Avenue lines were converted from cable to electric under traffic - at least the slot rails were installed that way.

Some or all WB&A interurbans had the plow hangers mounted to the car body.  It was preferred to operate with the plow on the rear, to make coasting through switches and crossings easier.

[daveklepper]

These are all the pjotos related to the subject that have scanned and fixed so far.

The plow did not ride on the conduit, but was suspended from a carrier attacvhedtp the  truck bolster (In DC and NYC, London carrier attached to car body), and was guided by the sirface conduit rales and depressed positive and negative current rails.  Carriers allowed side-to-side movement.

 

 

 

[Dot-connector]

Hello David,

I am working on an exhibit for the National Capital Trolley Museum and was wondering if you have any photos of the carrier the conduit plow rode on. These here are amazing, and I would like to draw an image showing just how the conduit plow rode on the carrier. I am only using images for reference, and would not reproduce them.

Thank you so much for your helpful information so far. You are amazing!

[daveklepper]

The explanaition was correct except for changeover.  The double-contact shoe (one side positive and one negative, polariity not imiportant and not consistent) was slid off horizontally by the man in the plowpit and then put on a shelf to be inserted in the carrier under the truck bolster of an inbound car, the pit spanning the width of two tracks.  The photo showing the front of the PCC above the end of the slot at the pit is for the outbound track, the inbound shows the the beginning of the conduit for the inbound track, since it is possible that the carrier was not accurately centered when the plowman inserted the plow into the carrier.

I believe that Third Avenue's practice was only slightly different, in that both tracks were treated like iinbound tracks regarding the end of conduit, in case there would be a need for single=track operation.  Not certain about this.  Am certain the a somewhat wider side-to-side movement of the plow was possible.

The street scene shows maintenance people removing an oject that someone had dropped into the slot.   It is not at a changeover point.

Two men regularly manned plowpits on busy lines, one in the pit and one on the street to handle the trolley poles. On lighter lines, the operator did the pole movement.   But then starting in 1948 or 1949, Capitol Transit started motorizing trolley poles so they could be railsed and lowered by the operator at the controls, on PCC cars and the 20 pre-PCCs, if my memory is correcgt.

[Enzoamps]

Look in the center of the track, there is a metal slot centered between the rails.  You can see it where the men are working.  A shoe from the car truck went down through that slot as the car rode along.  COntacts on eitherside of that show rubbed agains the metal strips in the little tunnel.  In one of the photos you are looking sorta back down the beginning of that tunnel,  the two contact strips are seen emerging from the tunnel and spreading a little.  the shoe went in between them.

The pickup shoe was of course wider than the slot, so there was a small covered pit in the center where the changeover occured.  They dropped the shoe into the pit, then returned the cover and rode off.

[Firelock76]

Becky, that's the below-street-level electrical conduit system that Washington DC's trolleys ran on.  Overhead wires were prohibited in the District so the trolley's got their juice from channels in the street. 

At least I'm sure those are the pictures David's posted.  I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

And oh yeah, corrosion was a problem.

And David, if you're looking in...

Good Lord sir, aside from the moon is there anywhere you haven't been?  You continue to amaze me!

[Penny Trains]

Ok.  I've been looking at these for 2 days and I still don't know.  What is it?

[daveklepper]

Did not know I had done such a thorough job of photographing features of the Washington, DC, plowpit I visited in Autumn, 1947, age 15+, courtesy Richard (?) Ellis, a Capitol Transit supervisor and a fellow ERA member.  (He was also a practicing Methodist Minister who gave a good invocation-welcome at the start of every ERA Convention banquet.)  The photos due explain a lot about how the counduit worked.  He later move to employmenet as a full-time cleric in Pittston, PA, midway between Scranton and Willksbarre, so we met-up again railfanning on my Wednesday days off as a 18-year-old summer-camp photography counselor at Camp With-a-wind, Honesdale, PA, in 1950.

Look forward to your additions.