Come to think of it, there was a guy holding the rope and talking to the driver on a radio. But still, it was something I had never seen done.
"Backpoling", pushing against the pole either requires a wheel-type pole or someone carefully tending the trolley rope.
A few systems had spots where short wye moves were made where backpoling was allowed without tending (the one-time end of San Francisco's "J Church" line at 30th and Church, where the wye still exists, comes to mind).
Twin Cities had some cars that ran out their entire service lives with wheel-type poles just to handle end-of-line wyes. Perhaps the wierdest example was the Texas Electric interurban, whose single-ended cars had two rear poles, one with a shoe for normal operation, and one with a wheel, mainly for backup moves.
San Francisco had front poles on its own PCC cars, both single and double ended, to allow the "X 11th St" move to one of the car houses.
Here in Toronto, I live near the Roncesvalles yard. A few years ago I was on a streetcar and me and a friend watched a CLRV back up with the pole up. We both said, "didn't know they could do that." It was an unusual sight.
On another note, the King st lines are all the new cars as is Bathurst, Spadina and St. Clair. Except for King st, they all run with pantographs, not the trolley pole. Queen st. uses both but the majority are the new cars. College st. is all the old cars and the ALRVs are getting pretty rare. Dundas st is all buses, I have no idea when the streetcars will return. The junction of King, Queen and Roncesvalles is due to be torn up and rebuilt- this was done about 15 years ago but I understand the track layout will be different. The wires above have not been configured for pantographs as yet.
They are single-end only for regular revenue passenger operation. Most if not all SF PCCs, and the Milan Peter Witts have small hand -operated back-up controllers in a panel behind the rear seat. This enables safer movement in yards and shops. Not currently, but not long ago, when the car house that regularly houses the heritage fleet was being renovated, back-up movement was necessary for the PCCs for put-in and pull-out moves. This true now in El Paso. Brooklyn's, Philadlephia's, Baltimore's, Washington's, Boston's and Detroit's PCCs never had the front pole nor back-up controllers.
Why do single-ended cars have trolley poles facing forward?
Lynn and I had a second floor room at the Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf a few years ago which overlooked the turnaround on the F line. I shot at least five pictures of various PCC's (including one in CTA colors) from our room.
SAN FRANCISCO – Nearly seven decades after being built, PCC streetcars are still earning their keep in San Francisco and thanks to a recent rehabilitation effort, the streamlined cars will be doing so for years to come. Since 2014, Brookville...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/06/12-refurbished-pcc-cars-hit-the-streets-of-san-francisco
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
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