Correction to the battery-car Third Avenue Railway information. There were only fifty, not one hundred. And they were not spliced together to make a long car, rather a new middle section was added. And they were the basis of cars 151-153 and 155-200, with 154 an entirely new body. 101 - 150 were rebuilt from single-truck convertables, much like Birneys, but with tapered ends and removable side panels replaced by grilles in the summer like the large fleet of curved-side and straight-side double-truck convertables, many of which lasted until after WWII and the masive bus conversion program.
The battery cars were only ten years old or less.
Need RC's OK before next question. Or he can ask it instead of the other thread.
Still waitng on rc
Of course Dave hit the hanging curve. LVT 65 was bought by CRANDIC to add service, 55 by LVT to replace 1003 which burned on P&W. 1003's trucks ended up under 55 because the Commonwealth trucks it came with didn't allow enough clearance for third rail beams to operate on P&W.
Sticking with traction for the present, Detroit's west side has a major north-south street, with a person's family name made up of a human body's essential organ attached to an annoyance, that has a major north-south bus route and did during the streetcar era. But one streetcar line did use this major avenue for about a mile, terminating in a loop on the grounds of an educational institution, the line's northern destination. The line originated downtown, came close to, but not directly at the Michigan Central Station, and had a very short section of PRoW about midway in its journey. It was an early part of the post-WWII bus onversion program, and never saw PCCs in regular service.
The Avenue, the streetcar line, and the educational institution, please.
If I'm reading my DSR map correctly, the street is Livernois Ave. The line ended in a loop at McNichols Ave. The educational institution is UDM (University of Detroit Mercy). The map only lists 20 lines but shows more.
The route designation was Fourteenth, running on Livernois, Davison, Linwood, PRW, 14th, Mack Ave (MLK Jr Blvd), Cass Ave, Grand River and Woodward to downtown.
You are correct. I think the route information you are using must be the current bus route, becase when I rode it fairly regularly, going from the MC Station to my sister's Muirlnd Ave. home (with the Livernoise bus connection), it continued on 14th all the way south across Grand River to Michigan Avenue and then ran with the Michigan Avenue cars downtown. Or maybe you are using an earlier route, since I rode it regularly from 1945 to its bustitution around 1947 or 1948. Look forward ot your question.
The DSR route info I had was from 1941.
This railroad's train number 1 started its journey on trackage rights for a few hundred feet to where it was loaded on a car ferry for a short trip to its home rails. After mail and express were shifted to railroad-owned trucks in the mid-1950s, the train originated at the (railroad) west ferry terminal, from where it operated with new equipment.
I gather the train originally originated at the east ferry terminal?
Yes. The train originated at the (railroad) east terminal.
Deluth, Messabi, and Iron Range?
You're in the right time zone. The new equipment that took over after the mail and express change was the only air-conditioned equipment this line ever owned.
latitude? Deluth, South Shore, and Atlantic?
Or the Deluth, Winnipeg, and Pacific, realy at the time a CN subsidiary?
daveklepper latitude? Deluth, South Shore, and Atlantic?
Duluth South Shore & Atlantic's train 1 originated at the joint PRR/NYC (read GR&I/MC) station in Mackinaw City MI on the lower peninsula. It was almost immediately loaded on the carferry Chief Wawatam for the short trip to St. Ignace in the Upper Peninsula, from where it went to Marquette. Never very important passenger runs, DSS&A 1 (and 2) were the U.P's lifeline for mail and express. After the 1955 decision to go to trucks for baggage, express and mail handling, DSS&A bought an RDC-1, their number 500, and ran it between St. Ignace and Marquette. This operation lasted only long enough to prove to the Michigan PUC that modern equipment wouldn't attract new riders (on most days outnumbered by the crew...) after which the RDC went to parent Canadian Pacific (CP 9049, VIA 6124). DSS&A remained in the passenger business through the Soo Line merger, carrying MILW's Copper Country Limited between Champion and Calumet. This was Soo Line's last passenger train (as compared to passenger-carrying caboose), discontinued in March 1968.
Rcdrye- Nice description of those trains...I can see myself riding on them and sorry I missed out. Quite possibly if it were anywhere else in the world except N. America they would still be running. I've been on several RDC's where the crew outnumbered the passengers : late sixties and seventies. VIA had a lot of RDC runs daily into Niagara Falls from Toronto and they were real track scorchers. I lived in Burlington at the time and there was no way anyone could get from Toronto to Burlington or vice versa faster than those RDC runs even if you had a Ferrari!
I mentioned to the conductor,as he put the step down for me, how fast that trip was and he said " Thats hell bent for leather Eddie".
The TH&B RDC ( Canadian Pacific) Toronto-Buffalo run was usually quite empty. What a shame. You would think enough seniors, teens, disabled, and people who don't like highway driving, especially on that QEW, would be enough but I was usually one of three passengers.
The DSS&A ran through a pretty empty landscape. Wallace Abbey's great description of the company: "The DSS&A lacked a lot of things. What it lacked most was economic viability." Most of the Shoreliner's route is gone now, except for the bit running northwest of Trout Lake. Most of the rest of the DSS&A has been gone for a few decades.
Well at one time an empty landscape was the reason for building a railroad in the first place...an infrastructure in place bringing along the commerce of new opportunities, mining, forestry, towns, farmland and so on and a way to get to markets. Now its all backwards and so highly regulated and controlled its almost impossible to make any sense of it. I'm sure the original investors of the DSS&A did not envision an empty landscape. It would have been important enough at one time and provided a valuable service. I've read the same nonsense about the Milwaukee Road pacific extension.
The gigantic "Ring of Fire" Chromium deposit in Northern Ontario has over a trillion $'s in proven ore reserves in place. It remains idle and undeveloped....there are no roads, there is no railroad. The Ontario Northland Railway is on life support and in danger of vanishing altogether. The Ring of Fire deposit would single handily turn the railroad around making it the QNS&L of this century. The political will is not there, environmental regulation wont allow a bridge over a river for fear of scaring fish. Can you imagine that with high unemployment in the North, soaring welfare and substance abuse.
The Iron Ore Company would never have developed those deposits up to Schefferville back in the fifties. New world order indeed.
https://archive.org/stream/lakesuperioralon00ralp#page/n0/mode/2up
The DSS&A had a few profitable years just before WWI and right near WWII, but it ran cross-lots along Lake Superior, with the GN, NP, Soo, MILW, C&NW and E&LS all competing for the iron and timber traffic, with lake boats fairly competitive for its population centers, and with poor connections for through traffic. It DID have the massive copper deposits on the Keweenaw Peninsula, but they didn't become really workable until the early 20th century. Even these didn't help much, as DSS&A's line was expensive to operate, and its hauls were relatively short. The unworkability of the region was really played out by the neighboring Huron Bay Railroad which was completed (with 4% grades) but never operated a revenue train. Even Soo Line's lightly built Gladstone Division to Saulte Ste Marie was a better route for through traffic.
Rcdrye- Those were native copper deposits. One of my Profs at the Mining School, an accomplished Mining Engineer, worked in the Keweenaw Peninsula. He always stated they had a heck of a time blasting the stuff because it would just splay out like toffee.
I have been to the area for a mining conference in the later 70's and it sure is beautiful. Also does not look much like the rest of the US does, as do parts of Northern Minnesota, but rather looks a lot like the majority of Canada. The great Precambrian Canadian Shield continues on into both these states on surface. The Great Lakes all have their own strong look with each one being very mysterious and Superior not only sets the tone, it sets the table.
Wanswheel- Thanks so much for this...what a great read.
https://archive.org/stream/alongbowstringor00ralprich#page/76/mode/2up
I think Wanswheel should ask the next question. If he defers, I will.
Why did the 20th Century Limited engineer sing 'Long, Long Trail'?
Black Jack Pershing going to Chicago?
Good guess but no, Pershing was still over there then.
Hint: The engineer’s name was Tony Francis and the piano player was his son. The Getty photo above shows them in the southwest corner of the concourse, on the balcony, deep left in the photo below.
From the center of the balcony looking east, but the room was far from empty on October 18, 1918.
Did it have anything to do with this?
A gigantic pyramid of German helmets.
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