Streetcars

[bfsfabs]

Ed / cabforward, I don't know if romance or reverence truly applies, but Metra in the Chicago area has locos named for towns and some for people. I just made some N scale decals for a guy there.

Lowell

[cabforward]

naming r.r. stock for people, places, things (def. of a noun from school) is a great idea. it should give people a personal connection to transit or r.r. cars were named for locations for many years..

amtrak has names for all its trains.. they should name each car for something to do with the name of the run..

example: train (made-up): silver comet, cars: milky way, horse's head, saturn, polaris..

[bfsfabs]

DUUHHHH !! Brain is non functional to day, I guess. Cal-Train, right here on the San Francisco peninsula, has F40PHs named for the cities they serve along the line.

Lowell

[edblysard]

You know, we eat jelly beans in Houston too!

[Modelcar]

Lowell...I can understand why you never have any jelly bean extras. When one starts on them there is no stopping...until the pkg. is empty. Love those jelly beans. Site here is Muncie, In.

QM

[Mookie]

Since we have become the "food" forum - those Jelly Bellies are #1 in my book - and I don't even like Jelly Beans! Lowell could send some since he ate the cake!

Jen

[Modelcar]

....Have we run out of streetcar tokens...er, talk.

QM

[cabforward]

ummm, excuse me, sir, if you don't mind? just one more thing, it's a very minor point, if you don't mind, sir, and it would really clear things up for me in this investigation..

i have noticed that every city rail system i have observed has a different gauge than regular railroads.. now, sir, if you don't mind helping me in this, why do city rail systems have a different track-gauge?

lt. columbo

[Anonymous]

There was a fear that traction companies would get into the freight business and begin hauling steam railroad freight cars through the city streets, so many localities required the local streetcar company to build to a different gauge than that used by the steam roads brfore a franchise would be issued. As this was generally legislated by a local governing body, of course was not always the case and some traction companies did, in fact, build to standard steam railroad guage. Very few, however, got involved in the freight business.
Interurban lines were generally less local in nature and many of them, in fact, were built to steam railroad standards in order to operate standard freight cars as well as regional passenger service.
In my home state of Pennsylvania, most city systems were built to a guage of 5'2-1/2", often reperred to as "Pennsylvania Broad Gauge". While this may have been required by local authorities, it was really a moot issue as trolley lines in Pennsylvania were generally built with such tight curves, steep grades and light bridges, that it would have been impossible to run standard freight cars on them. As an example, Johnstown Traction built to the standard 4' 8-1/2" railroad gauge, but it would be unimaginable to run a boxcar on any part of the system. The city fathers in Johnstown apparently had a more practical slant on the issue than their peers throughout most of the Keystone state.
Jim Kubanick
Roseau MN

[Modelcar]

...Jim: Yes, one example would be the light bridge that was between Moxham and Ferndale over the river. As well as the grades required to get the system from downtown all the way up to Westmont.

QM

[Anonymous]

I , like you, grew up in the 50's and 60's I spent a lot of time in Boston and St. Louis. I was saddened on 5/21/66 when the last car ran. At the time, it was inevitable. National City Lines had been in place there from 1940 until 1963 when the public agency took over. IF not for the war the cars would have gone 5 years earlier. When expenses were properly allocated, over the long haul they really were cheaper than buses but no one ever said that politics is rational and it took politics for General Motors to pay off local government officials to buy the lines and to have them romoved and all the scrap disappearing. Glad to see the full circle coming around again but the streetcar will never be fully in charge of urban transit again. No one is going to ever again want to foot the bill for the infrastructure. In the short run, buses are cheaper to get started cause the road is already there.