What moron created such a system? Is there no backup brake system?
first of all what are you talking about ??
link ? quote , anything ??
Article in news wire.... and
local news paper
petitnj What moron created such a system? Is there no backup brake system?
To answer your question it was a political committee almost twenty years ago, that started it back in the 1980's and believe me, as a former resident, some of the politicians in Memphis are nowhere near "the sharpest pencils in the box."
This is a link to a site ( WHBQ Fox 13), in Memphis. There is a picture of the cars involved in the accident. One is one of the two axled Brill cars, and the other a double trucked car looks like one of the original cars(?) imported from Oporto, Portugal for the start of the Trolley Project.
http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/two-mata-trolley-cars-collide-mfo-20110601
The first line was constructed in the center of the Main Street Mall with stops along the mall. It was later extended (the second phase of expansion) by creating a loop utilizing the ROW for part of the way (nee: L&N RR Passenger line that paralled the IC tracks from Central Station to about Auction St on the North end of Main where it connected back into the Mains St line.. They, MATA, also constructed a Car Barn and turning loop at that facility. The third phase took the line East from Main Street & Madison,Ave. East out Madison Ave, To a location in the Medical Center.
http://www.heritagetrolley.org/existMemphis.htm Link to Historical information on the Memphis Trolly System
http://www.heritagetrolley.org/existMemphis.htm This link shows some of the cars of the Memphis System and look at the Madison Ave shot -I think the purple car is similar to the double trucker that was involved with the Brill single trucked car.
The Oporto, Portugal cars ,well, IIRC think there were one or two that were imorted from Brazil and Australia, as well) . All cars and the Brill Cars were in pretty rough shape when the arrived in memphis.
A local group and their craftsmen, had set up a shop in the area of the Car Barn on N. Main to repair and rebuild them; to get them ready to run South and North, on Main Street A company named Gomanco(?) has built some "replicars" to be used by the MATA Trolly System.
P.S. The grade from the area of Central Station, nort to the area of Poplar Ave, is pretty steep from South to North [ That is the line paralleling Riverside Drive and the CN (nee. former IC Passenger access to Central Station -former route of the Panama and City trains in more recent times] Now they run around the East side of Memphis on the CN Freight byasss(nee: IC/ICG/IC) ( utilizing an AMSHAK for passengers(?)
Having learned to run streetcars at age 15 and having been a regular operator at trolley museum for many years and an instructor for a few, I can say operator failure must have been involved, because as far as I know, every type of streetcar and light rail car had backup in case of loss of power. Speicifcially:
1. If you simply put the car in reverse and advance the controller, the residual magnatism of the motor fields will generate a breaking action that should stop the car. Know of an incident on a Connecticut Co. open car, 1414 or 1425, with a kid runing across the track directly in front of an advancing car, with ballast having been thrown up to hit the exhaust switch on the unde-floor air tank with no airbrakes as a result, and the operator using this technique to stop the car in time to avoid an injury.)
2. Use the handbrake. That is what it is for. On some cars it is foot operated.
On some modern cars either of the above options requires that you still have low-voltage battery power. If it was not operator failure, then if there was loss of both battery power and main propulsion (trolley wire) power, then maintenance of the batteries must have been at fault and there were thus two simultaneous losses of power.
You mean to tell us that these streetcars have no air or hydraulic backup system for braking during the loss of power? I know we have a new religion to worship batteries but don't bet your life on them. Electrical systems are not backups: eg Japanese Nuclear Reactors, NE Corridor Trains...
All-elecric PCC cars didn't have air or any hydraulic system. They did have an effective handbreak which could stop a car pretty effectively unless the rail was slick. Also the entire electric braking system, regnerative or dynamic breaking from the motors, the magnetic track brake, and clasp drum final brake were not dependent on overhead wire power, but could be activated simply on battery power. Most modern electric cars have similar redundancy, and I suspect there was operator failure, possibly because of panic, that created the incident.
To the Original Poster and others who asked.
You have to have first hand observational information (Demographics(?) to understand the following statement. " It is Memphis!"
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