Johnny, this question really has me puzzled. The only thing I know is it's a southern city that must still have passenger service since you mention there are plans afoot to relocate the station. I've wracked my meager memory and spent several hours googling (without success I might add) in an attempt to find a city where the tracks were elevated about 50 years ago. I'll keep trying but unless I have a brainstorm or get lucky on the internet I'll just have to wait for someone else to identifiy the city or you post additional clues that will get me on the right track.
Mark
I'll narrow the location area a bit--the city is in a southern state.
Johnny
In a certain city, a railroad station was on the "cross main street" (it crossed The main street at a 90 degree angle). Because the railroad crossed the "cross main street," the crossing was often blocked as passenger cars were shifted on trains. About fifty years ago, the station was moved north to be on The main street, and the tracks at the original station were elevated. Now, plans are in the works to again locate the station near its previous location. What is the city? If you can, name the two streets.
Richmond Broad Street it is. After SAL trains moved to Broad St in the early 1950s. SAL trains backed out southbound and in northbound (and RF&P connections for same left "wrong way" northbound) because of the way the tracks connected. Your question next.
I will guess Richmond Broad Street Station, which at first was strictly ACL and RF&P. road Sreet was built on a loop, which allowed all trains to come in in the same direction, and all to leave in the same direction. The other station was Main Street, which was used by SAL and C&O (and RF&P for the SAL trains). When SAL began using Broad Street, the trains still ran through, but did not stop at, Main Street.
When the Southern detoured DC-Atlanta trains over the SAL & RF&P because of a hurricane in 1969, I rode the Crescent from Atlanta to Washington. I woke in Richmond, and wondered why I saw a Southern train pointed in the same direction that my train was pointed. I later learned about the loop.
Here's a classic station question.
When this station was built, all trains arrived at the platforms from the northwest and departed to the southeast, regardless of the eventual direction of travel. Name the city, the station name and the original railroads. Extra points for the other station in the same city.
Rob you've nailed it. The original V&T connected with the SP and WP at Reno and was Carson City's only link to the rest of the national rail network. Revenue passenger and freight service ended in 1950 and the rails were later taken up. Reconstruction of the line between Virginia City and Carson City was completed in 2009 and the "new" V&T operates as a tourist railroad. We await your next question.
The 1935 Royal Blue cars, later used on the Alton's Abraham Lincoln, were new-built semi-lightweights, about the same weight per car as the Milwaukee's Hiawatha cars. The 1937 Royal Blue was made up of rebuilt heavyweights, used until the end of service in 1958.
I'm going with Carson City Nevada on the Virginia and Truckee. Current passenger provider and historic Passenger/Freight provider have the same name, but are obviously not the same company.
Were not the B&O Royal Blue cars rebuilt heavywieghts retaining six-wheel trucks, but with streamlined appearance? So could they be judged as real lightweights?
What state capital currently has passenger service but has been without freight rail service for over 60 years?Name the railroad that presently serves this city and the road that previously provided both freight and passenger service to it.
A little correction on the history of the GM&O. The GM&N and the M&O were merged in 1940 to form the GM&O. It was not until 1947 that the GM&O bought and absorbed the Alton.
Incidentally, I knew a man who worked as an agent- telegrapher on the M&O and then the GM&O. He had some interesting tales to tell of what he had seen.
That's the ones. Carbodies by ACF, power by Alco (531 engine, same as an HH600) and electricals by Westinghouse. It was still GM&N until the 1940 merger with the Alton. The Rebels inaugural run was December 17, 1935.
Of course, while I was looking this up I checked on the equally ACF-built B&O Royal Blue of 1935. Looks like it also beat the Rebels by a few months, inaugurating in June 1935. In a little twist, both the Rebel trainsets and the Royal Blue trainset ended up on the GM&O, the Royal Blue via the Alton's Abraham Lincoln. The Royal Blue cars, like the Milwaukee's Hiawatha cars, were more or less conventional size, unlike the low-slung Rebels.
Mark, its your question. Rob
The Rebel of the GM&O or was it still GM&N at the time
Think deep south... and 1935... and Alco. The Prospector was completed in 1940. These were also among the first lightweights with sleeping accomodations (The Denver Zephyr's were at least partly articulated.)
One of the former IRR high speeds (LVT 1030, built as IRR 55) ran recently at Seashore Trolley Museum after a long storage - unfortunately it has C&LE trucks.
The D&RGW's little Prospector? I know it had couplers, because much of the time it got hauled by a steam locomotive!
If you had not restricted it to diesel powered streamliners, then of course there were the Indiana Railroad High Speeds (but NOT the C&LE Red Devils), the Phila and Western Bullets, the Georgia Power Atlanta - Marietta Cincinnati Lightweights, and would go back to the Stillwell Erie commuter cars or to the original 1905 Hudson and Manhattan Stillwell subway cars which were light enough to run in test service on the 2nd Avenue El, which the IRT steel cars could not.
After I posted the question I realized I should have restricted it to diesel powered, since the 1935 steam-powered Hiawathas tied the object of the question for service dates, and certainly had couplers on both ends of all cars. The RI's TAs didn't arrive until 1937. Although the Super Chief got diesel power in 1936, it didn't go lightweight until 1937. What I'm looking for is smaller, and a lot less famous, and was the first lightweight streamliner with non-EMC diesel power.
On PCCs Chicago's prewar order was all St. Louis, postwar split about half each Pullman and St. Louis. When the CTA was looking at converting PCC streetcars to rapid transit units (as it eventually did - 570 of them!) it sent a Pullman PCC to St. Louis, and a St. Louis PCC to Pullman. The car sent to hometown builder Pullman was literally dragged off the rails of the Cottage Grove line into the Pullman plant by a CTA wreck wagon. The streetcar bodies proved not to be suitable for conversion, and St. Louis built new bodies with recycled parts instead.
Pittsburgh had 666 St. Louis PCC cars. Most of the Pittsburgh orders were split 75/25 Westinghouse/GE. Car 100 did run in revenue service there, but not until after BQTs cars were in regular service.
I asume you mean the first that employed non-articualted cars and had a locomotive separate from the passenger equipment?
Rock Island Rocket and Sante Fe Super Chief
I also realize that there is more to the PCC story. The actual FIRST PCC car was not built as a PCC car. As a trial balloon, TWIN COACH of all people made a sample car to test entering the lightweigt streetcar market around 1930 . It resembled the single-end Peter Witt Master Units that Brill was buiding for Indianapolis. The BMT-B&QT people ended up owning the car, which was painted maroon and cream like the 6000 and 6200 series cars which they had just gotten, also Peter Witt single end design. When the PCC project started, BMT-B&QT offered the car to Transit Research as a test vehicle, and it was so used as PCC car A, with vaious combinations of motors and trucks and controls, with all the tests being conducted in Brooklyn, based on the 9th Avenue carhouse. Then Pullman built a prototype body, designated as PCC car B. which was very similar in design to the prewar non-standee window bodies eventually built by St. Louis, Pullman, and CC&F, painted green. It operated in test service in both Brooklyn and Chicago. I think the Twincoach body was eventually scrapped in Brooklyn, but I think the "B" was returned to Pullman (Worcester, MA, not Chicago), and transformed into the 1937 Queen Mary, the Boston Elevated 3000, their first PCC, and the only one until the 1941 delivery of the 3001`-3025 "Tremont" class. St. Louis built most PCC's. Pullman built all used in Boston. except for the 25 2nd hand double-enders from Dallas, which I think were St., Louis cars.
It is interesting that none of the PCC's used in the fleet in San Francisco are Pullman. All are St. Louis.
Pullman PCC's run Ashmont - Mattapn in Boston today.
You are very generous in accepting "correct" answers. I should have caught that BQT 1000 was a replacement car.
Among the early lightweight streamliners, these were the first with couplers on both ends of all cars.
I specifically wrote streetcar for the last PCC, and did not mean to include either the CTA PCC rapid transit cars or the similar and slightly larger Blue cars of Cleveland's CRT.
The original car 1000 was built for Brooklyn, but was delivered as a sample to Pittsburgh as car 100. At the same time, not two months later, car 1001 arrive in Brooklyn and went into test service with regular service starting two months later, and car 1001, not Pittsburgh 100, was the first to carry revenue passengers. It is in restored operating condition, complete with nickel-accepting turnstyle, at the Shore Line Trolley Museum, Branford Electric Railway Aassociation, East Hven adn Branford, CT www.shorelinetrolley.org
You got six cities and more. Antwerp and Ghent are still running PCC's, Antwerp's are single-ended, and Ghent's are double-ended. Brussels is still running some very modified PCC's in that they are three-truck articulated models. A few regular Brussels PCC's are available for charter at the museum. And one is in San Franciso, painted in Zurich colors, operational for occasional use on the F line.
And 1040, the last streetcar PCC constructed in the USA has been restored and operates on the F line in San Francisco, the city for which it was built.
But the last true PCC constructed anywhere, some time after the last PCC constructed for Brussels, was one for Marseilles, France, which had kept one heavily used line as a remnant of a large streetcar system, mostly abandoned after WWII. It was part of a fleet of double-end mu PCC's that usually ran in two-car trains. About seven years ago, the decision was made for a new light rail system, using wider, articulated cars, and the street was rebuilt into a pedestrian zone with wider track spacing, and the in-town terminal tunnel made single-track. The relatively new cars (1982) were scrapped, with the trucks and other equipment sold to Brussels to keep their fleet running. (Ghent and Antwerp are meter gauge, Brussels and Marseilles standard.)
Broolklyn car 1000 was constructed a few months later to replace the car diverted to Pittsbugh. It was not built by St. Louis, but built entirely of aluminum by Clark Equipment, maker of the PCC trucks. It was the first PCC to have standee windows, which did not appear on regular steel PCC's until after WWII. It had a slightly less streamlined front, somewhat like a Brilliner.
rcdyer -next question please
The last PCC's built for US service of which I'm aware are CTA 1-50, single-unit rapid transit cars, on which CTA paid royalties to the Transit Research Corp, holder of the various PCC patents.
The first series production cars were Brooklyn & QueensTransit 1000 series, but Pittsburgh Railways received car 100 two months before the B&QT cars were delivered. Car 1000 is now at the Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston. After an interval as instruction car M-11, PRys 100 was screpped. SF Muni 1040, the last one built in 1952, has spent its whole life in San Francisco where it still runs on the F Market and J Church lines (pull-ins to carhouse).
Brussels had PCC cars later rebuilt in a variety of configurations. The original carbodies were based on a prewar swiss design, non-PCC and meter gauge. One of the Belgian cars (painted in Zuerich's VBZ scheme) is also in service in San Francisco on the F line.
US system operators of PCCs: Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego (heritage), Kenosha (heritage). I'm pretty sure Brussels has retired its PCCs, but Ghent may still have some.
The 2-8-0's may have been freight engines, but I rode behind one in steel open-platform roller-bearing coaches between Scranton and Carbondale in the summer of 1950! But it didnot have the train name on it, so it was not a good answer. However, I will grab the chance to ask the question. Mutliple part:
Where were the first PCC cars put into service and where can one of these be found today?
Where was the last USA PCC streetcar put into service and where can it be found today?
Where was the last-built Western European PCC car using original PCC technology put into service and what happened to it?
Name as many operators of PCC cars in regular service, including Western European models but not the Soviet block derivitates and successors (TATRA, etx.), today, as you can, assuming you have the above information and name at least six.
rcdrye That's the one. The "streamlining" only lasted a year or two, but it was apparently redone at least once with "The Whippet" also appearing on the running board (I don't know which is the original version.) Since it had a stephenson valve gear and small drivers it probably topped out at less than 50 MPH, but the Rutland didn't have much track that was even that fast. The "Whippet" service was a New England to the west service via the Rutland to Ogdensburgh NY, and thence via the NYC's former Rome Watertown and Ogdensburgh back to real main lines. The circuitous route got shippers a lower price for their "fast freight". DSO17 has the next question.
That's the one. The "streamlining" only lasted a year or two, but it was apparently redone at least once with "The Whippet" also appearing on the running board (I don't know which is the original version.) Since it had a stephenson valve gear and small drivers it probably topped out at less than 50 MPH, but the Rutland didn't have much track that was even that fast.
The "Whippet" service was a New England to the west service via the Rutland to Ogdensburgh NY, and thence via the NYC's former Rome Watertown and Ogdensburgh back to real main lines. The circuitous route got shippers a lower price for their "fast freight".
DSO17 has the next question.
There are photos of #28 before and after the skirt was added posted on the Fallen Flags website:
www.rr-fallenflags.org
The after photo is shown as taken in Feb. 1939. Since the Whippet service started in Jan 1939. the train name on the tender was probably the original arrangement and the name was later moved to the skirt.
I don't have a question ready. Would somebody else please ask one?
rcdrye The one I was thinking of had a train name painted on the running board skirting, and was the only one so decorated by the railroad. It's "streamlining" was later donated to the war effort.
The one I was thinking of had a train name painted on the running board skirting, and was the only one so decorated by the railroad. It's "streamlining" was later donated to the war effort.
The Rutland added running board skirts to a 2-8-0 (#28), but the only picture I have found on the internet has "Rutland" on the running board and "The Whippet" on the tender.
Actually I had forgotten the D&H's odd engines with the smooth boiler casings, but as far as I know they were all passenger engines. D&H's 1400 series high pressure 2-8-0's (and 4-8-0)could hardly be described as streamlined. You are in the right geographic neighborhood, though.
The N&W's "automatic switchers" which did have some streamlining were rebuilt 4-8-0s.
The Delaware and Hudson did just that, but perhaps you are thinking of another railroad.
Not to change any outcome any but the TH&I is the Vandalia / PCC&STL/ PRR predecessor.
It still amazes me how many short-run Pullman cars there were in the midwest, even ones involving multiple carriers.
In the streamlined steam era, this eastern carrier applied some streamline styling to a 2-8-0 for freight service.
rcdrye PRR's PCC&St L. was used from Effingham. IC-C&EI-CCC&StL. via Tuscola and Pana?
PRR's PCC&St L. was used from Effingham. IC-C&EI-CCC&StL. via Tuscola and Pana?
You got the majority of the answer, but the C&EI was not involved.
From 1891 to 1897 the Diamond Special and Daylight Special operated from Chicago to Effingham, IL where the Vandalia Line (PCC&StL) was utilized to St. Louis. From 1897 to 1900 these trains were rerouted to operate from Chicago via Gilman, Clinton and Decatur to Pana, where the Big 4 was utilized to St. Louis. In 1899, the IC purchased the St. Louis, Peoria and Northern, giving it a through Chicago-St. Louis line via Springfield. In late 1900 the Diamond Special and Daylight Special were rerouted to the all-IC route.
In 1904, the C& EI started their own Chicago-St. Louis service, utilizing the Big 4 at Pana.
Rcdrye, the next question is yours.
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