Peter Witt streetcars that are not PCCs

[daveklepper]

Hope to see others contribute.  Brooklyn had about 586 doublo-enders, (8000-8585) the largest fleet of double-enders, and 200 single-end 6000-6099, 6200-6299, the latter with comfortable leather-covered seats).  I'll start with some of the double-enders.  Before ordering the single enders, 86 of the last double-end cars were modified to normally operate as single-end with a turnstile at the front to speed loading.  This was followed through on the single-end Peter Witts, and even some old end-door convertables (4100s) were so modified.  And the PCCs had turnstiles too.

Starting some double-end Peter Witts:

 

[rcdrye]

Cleveland had several series, including an articulated variant.  Not surprising since Peter Witt was a Cleveland Transit Commissioner.  His non-transit claim to fame was inventing the paper clip.  Cleveland's 1913 center-entrance cars were sort of a test run for the Peter Witt traffic flow concept, and the relatively poor performance of their design led to moving the entrance to the front for later models.  Center-entrance trailers operated regularly in trains with Peter Witt motors.

Toronto, Baltimore, Rochester and Chicago ("Sedans") also had non-PCC Peter Witts.

[Penny Trains]

Cleveland Transit P. W.'s

Our "subway" was the lower level of the Detroit-Superior high level bridge:

W 25th and Detroit subway entrance:

This one looks to be in the green and gray Raymond Leowy scheme:

Cleveland Transit System barn at Madison and W 117th:

Cleveland Railway Company barn:

...and Detroit Rd. yard:

CTS(?) Sandcar:

Windermere car barn:

You don't see this much these days:

This either! 

Ye REAAALLLYYY olden days:

Euclid Beach Park Loop:

Cleveland hosted the A.E.R.A. conventions in 27, 28 & 29.

Last run Jan 24, 1954:

But in 1927:

...it was the metropolis that inspired!

The above pics came from "The Cleveland Memory Project", a fantastic online archive at Cleveland State University: http://www.clevelandmemory.org/

 

[Firelock76]

Those trolley shots are a fascinating look at a lost world, aren't they?

My, what we've lost.

Anyway, this is for that patriotic trolley in photo 12 of Becky's post...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_rk9FNOfEo

 

[daveklepper]

Cities that had Peter Witts but never PCCs in revenue service include Louisville, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Youngstown (?)' Denver (narrow gauge).

[rcdrye]

Buffalo and Erie (Erie PA city system) had Peter Witts they sold to Gary (Indiana) Railways, which converted them to one man cars with no center exit and a treadle rear exit.  Chicago converted several "sedans" to one man cars in the 1950s and then retired them without ever using them again.

[Overmod]

Add to the list of

OXYMORONS

- jumbo shrimp ...

-military intelligence ...

- altogether separate ...

HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE SUBWAY

[Penny Trains]

The entrances to the subway were at West 29th, West 25th and West 9th.

Maybe it was less than a mile, but many more miles were proposed but never built.

A second deck was added also to the Lorain-Carnegie bridge for streetcar use:

Had it been completed, it would have had just about the most impressive entrances you'd ever see for a subway:

But in the end only the Detroit Superior bridge was used:

It's sad what we give up.

There are other tunnels in Cleveland that had nothing to do with railroads.

This one I've seen first hand.  But it was back in the 80's and I didn't have a camera along.  So these are not my photos:

Of course on the heavy rail side of things, there were (and still are) the many underground tracks of the Cleveland Union Terminal:

 

[Miningman]

Terrific information Penny....thanks so much.

[Penny Trains]

Any chance to promote the home town! 

[daveklepper]

Penny, a terrific photo.  Is that at Colingwood?

[Penny Trains]

That one was taken at Linndale, which was at the other end of my street, once upon a time.   Before I was born! 

[daveklepper]

Some more views of the double-end 8000s in the southern part of Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island

[BaltACD]

Baltimore Transit Co.

 

 

 

[rcdrye]

Baltimore Transit 6144 (same series as 6119) is up for possible use as a fleet car at Seashore Trolley Museum.  It runs OK, but hasn't been serviced in a long time.  Body in reasonably good shape.  Seats, floors and paint, along with a thorough wiring check are needed.  Looking for about $500 for 2018 work in addition to what's on hand.  Car has been regauged to standard from Baltimore's 5' 4.5" cable car gauge.

[daveklepper]

Thanks.  Rode cars in the 6100 series in Baltimoire in 1947, age 15, and hope to find and scan the photos some day.  On the scenic Mt. Washington line, they were used interchageably with the PCCs and were among the best non-PCC cars Irode, somewhat peppier and smoother than the fairly good Brooklyn 6000s (single-end) and 8000s.

But in the immediate PostWWII period, Peterv Witts and PCCs were not much more than a drop in the bucket compared to the vast fleet of Brill semi-convertables.  PCCS and Peter Witts were all one-man.  But there were some two-man Semis, red and cream, while all one-man cars were yellow-orange and cream.

And three-car mu trains of semis ran on Sparrows Point.  Much later, single PCCS were used until abandonment.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

On CSL and for a while on CTA, the Sedans and PCC's were two-man cars, although near the end, some PCC's were converted for one-man operation.

[rcdrye]

Western,Cottage Grove and 63rd had some one man operation with PCCs.  CTA kept changing from part-time one man service to weekend bus replacement before total bus replacement (and rapid transit conversion of PCC cars) won out. Wentworth Avenue, the last line, finished with two-man cars.  Chicago's postwar PCCs were all built as two-man, with hand controls instead of foot pedals.  The prewar cars with the more "Peter Witt" door arrangement were easier to set up for one man service.

Even after the political battles for one-man service were won, Chicago maintained a very large number of two-man lines.  Most if not all of the one-man lines were discontinued before the last of the conventional car equipped two-man lines.

[Penny Trains]

Since you brought up Coney Island, here are a couple of pics of cars in Euclid Beach Park service.

Just about dead center in this photo you can just make out the streetcar station and cars in winter storage on the track out front:

Here's a closer view:

PCC's in Euclid Beach service:

The park had the Sleepy Hollow RR:

Later it was dieselized.

Cleveland's Luna Park had this great little loco:

Bob Hope used to sneak into Luna Park when he was a kid.

Car with advertisement (front left of car) for "Milk Men's Day" at Luna Park.

[Penny Trains]

Just for fun, and I hope you'll forgive this excursion, here's a short video of the amusement park in my living room. 

[rcdrye]

The Euclid Beach concrete arch was still in place a few years ago.  The site is now a "manufactured housing" park.

[Penny Trains]

I found another pic of the streetcar station:

My mom is one of those "wasted youths" who would hop the streetcar and ride out to the beach to ride the coasters whenever she had a bit of money in her pocket.

Yes, the arch is still there:

It's on the list of historic places.  A small section of the old lake pier remains and there's the old Racing Derby (Cedar Downs) at Cedar Point.  But the only other big piece that survives is the Euclid Beach Carousel which has been restored and you can ride it at the Western Reseve Historical Society Museum in University Circle.

[Miningman]

Very very nice Penny. That old photo at Luna Park with the kid and the 4-4-0 is terrific. What a beautiful locomotive. 

The Diesels in the photos are ugly and about as exiting as suet pudding.

I can see where you get some of your inspirations. 

Thank you for all this. 

[daveklepper]

Some more pictures of Brooklyn 8000-series double-end Peter Witts. 

On the freight-only RoW between Ditmass and 9th Avenue under the now-absent Culver Shuttle elevated structure:

Returning to MacDonald Avenue at Ditmass:

Flatbush and Lorimer (I think?)

On the Grand Street line heading to ward LaGuardia Airport passing a fan-trip PCC, the last in the old "Packiderm Grey" and scarlet color scheme on the bridge between Brooklyn and Queens.

On Jamaica Avenue at Williamsburg Bridge Plaza after the 1947 blizzerd:

 

[daveklepper]

canned some negatives that were never printed, apparently of a Brooklyn fan-trip around 1949  WE used 8525, a double-end car that had been converted for usual single-end operation while keeping its double-end capabilities, with a turnstile at the new single end, around 1929.  About 40 such 8000's were converted, as an experiment before the single-end 6000's were ordered in 1930.  After the 6000's replaced them on the heavy Flatbush Avenue line, they spent the rest of their careers on the Myrtle Avenue line, which ran under the Myrtle Avenue elevated, and is a bus line today.  I think the fantrip was run on the day of that lines last day of operation, or the day before, with these cars being scrapped afterward.

The last years of operation in Brooklyn had just three PCC lines operating, Church, Coney Island Avenue, and McDonald Avenue.  But ten or 15 double-end 8000's were kept to the end so emergency service could be provided using trailing crossovers for cutback operation when part of one or the other of the liens was blocked.

The 6000's on xhop truks at DeKalb shopa probably had been cannibalized for their trucks and motors to keep double-end 8000's running/

 

Our fantrip car on its home territory under the Mrtle Avenue elevated.

Below at the end of the Metropolitan Avenue line at Jamaica Avenue.   Jamaica Avenue also had a streetcar line, which I rode on its last evening, 1948, but with out pictures.

Also, same location:

I think this location is on Ocaan Parkway, normally home to the 8100's, 8000's with field-tap connecdtions added to their motors for higher speed, with 8111 at Branford - Shore Line Trolley Musuem

And here is 8112, sister to our 8111, definitely on Ocean Avenue

I apologize for the whiite spots.  Now that I see them I'll be able to repair these photos and replace these submittals with the repaired ones.

The ramp to the upper level at DeKalb shops:

I think this location is near East New York, where the Jamaica Aenue "J" crosses over the Fresh Pond Junction - Jamaica LIRR line, (now freight-only?).

And below is on Stillwell Avene, Coney Island, adjacent to the rapid-transit Stillwell Avenue Coney Island Station.  The West End and Bey Ridge streetcar lines ran to this point.

[Penny Trains]

As I'm sure is the case for many of us, these pics make me wax nostalgic for an era I never knew.  They just go to show that higher technology doesn't necessarily mean life is more civilized.  Or at the very least, more "civil".

[daveklepper]

As promised, I did correct the white holes in the two Ocean Avenue pictues and also corrected the effects of the sprocket holes on developmen, and reposted. The mutli car photo that follows is believed to be on Flushing Avenue in Queens where the line to La=Guardia Airport (Grand Street?) turns off he Flushing - Ridgewood line.  The second is adjaent to Mount Richmond Cemetary, near the Brooklyln - Queens border, but I think in Queens.

[daveklepper]

Car 8111 is at the Shore Line Trolley Museum.   Here it is in regular service 70 years ago photographed when I was 16-1/2 at the southern end, Neptune Avenue, of the Ocean Avenue line,

[Miningman]

8111 looks a bit worn and threadbare. Glad it made it to preservation. How much longer was it in regular service after this picture was taken? 

[Jones1945]

The Shore Line Trolley Museum (please turn down the volume first)

In the video, the motor sound exactly like the Trolley (We call them Tram) in my city before their refurbishment, when I was a little kid, riding the tram from point A to point B then go home from point B was one of our family activities, sometimes we did it after a dinner, sometimes its was only me and my father.