OK MUST HAVE BEEN THINKING OF A LATER GROUP OF CARS
A BELL SIMILAR TO A LOCOMOTIVE BELL MOUNTED ON THE FRONT OF THE ROOF?
The Pittsburgh Railways cars were otherwise conventional cars except for one external feature especially noticeable when the cars were in motion.
Possibly using electric resistive hearing to heat water and allowing hot water or even steam to heat cars in winter instead of direct resistor-bank radiation. The hot-water pipes can run the length of the car and do not require circulating fans to distribute the heat, and this indirect heat transfer is actually more efficient than direct radiation from resistors.
The 200 cars were, I believe, real pioneers other ways, the first lightweight double-truck cars, with smaller-than usual high-speed motors, four motors per car, and lower floors than were standard for cars of that era, about the same I hight as the just-invented 4-wheel safety cars. The were steel with wood-and-canvass roofs, like the many lightweight designs that followed. They may have been delivered with only center doors, and set-up for two-man operation, but later were converted to Peter Witt configuration, equipped with one-man safety equipment, and became one-man cars. I believe they lasted thru WWII until replaced by PCCs and by closing the shuttle runs that were their last use as double-end cars.
Shortly after it was formed by consolidating a number of small systems in 1910, Pittsburgh Railways ordered over 200 streetcars from two builders. These cars were designed for economy of operation by using a feature more commonly associated with steam locomotives. What was the feature that made these cars unusual?
I was thinking of some of the MP Pacifics that were identical to the Ps-4s but for a Delta trailing truck, but the CE&I K-3s work as well. Your question!
C&EI and Southern had heavy pacifics similar to the Erie K5 but with 73" drivers. C&EI class K-3 by Lima (1923) mainly for handling Chicago-Florida trains. Southern's were the famous class Ps-4 from Alco-Schenectady and Alco-Richmond 1923 and 1924, with later batches from Alco-Richmond and Baldwin. Alabama and Vicksburg (Illinois Central) had some heavy Baldwin 4-6-2's with 73" drivers, but they were of a slightly different design, with Young valve gear instead of the Baker found on the others.
These locomotives were almost identical to the Heavy Pacific, but had the Light Pacific's 73'' drivers.
One was a Southeastern road, the other a Southwestern road.
Alright...
While the only railroad to recieve the USRA Heavy Pacific was the Erie, two railroads later had similar locomotives built which differed from each other primarily by only one characteristic. Railroads and classes, please, with bonus points for the difference.
I'll post one later tonight...
(Reply 5100!)
SIRT under B&O. The two steam operations did connect with other passenger services operated by the respective railroads, and the equipment may be termed rapid transit equipmennt but was not similar to any subway cars I know of. On the other hand the SIRT standard mu cars were built to the same dimensions as the BMT 2000's, A and B types, were compatible with those cars, and some actually operated on the BMT after WWII, after the IND division began running to Rockaway, and there was a real shortage of steel cars, in part made up by running the BMT Culver service with ex-SIRT cars, with these cars seeing service in the 4thAvenue Subway and making it into Manhattan.
Your question..
Staten Island Rapid Transit under the B&O?
There were two steam operations that matched your description. The obvious one was the IC's suburban operation, which had a three routes and shared right-of-way but not much else with IC's mainline passenger operations.
SP had a steam operation in Oakland CA, most of which was later electrified in 1912, but at least some of which was operated in conjunction with a streetcar-like operation through downtown Oakland across the Oakland Estuary to Alemeda. SP's steam operations did share the Oakland Mole with SP's other services.
Name a steam-railroad-operated rapid transit service that used what were essentially subway-type mu electric cars, with more than one route. The service did not connect directly with any other railroad passenger service, except at one time a few local streetcar routs, not even the thru passenger services of the owning steam railroad.
The LIRR 0-4-4Ts were the last steam locomotives to operate on the Brooklyn elevateds, even after all elevated trains were mu electrics.
The first LIRR electric mus arrived in 1904, nearly identacle to the IRT's first all-steel cars. They operated in the joint Williamsburg Bridge service for the last time in the summer of 1910. They were still in use in WWII, class MP41. The MP54s came later, in time for Penn Station's opening.
LIRR bought six Rhode Island 0-4-4Ts from the Lake Street Elevated Railway, whose engines were among the most widely distributed of former L engines. LIRR removed LSERy's vacuum brakes, replacing them with Westinghouse train air. Service on the BERy lasted until 1904.
The Long Island Railroad bought ex-Chicago 0-4-4T's. I think from what became the Metropolitan, but possibly Lake Street, and used them on Sands Street, Brooklyn-Jamaica, and Sands Street-Rockaway Beach and Broadway Ferry-Rockaway Beach services using tracks of the Brooklyn United elevatedl lines between an incline east of Flatbush Avenue on Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, and betwen Crescent Street at a ramp connecting the East Fulton Street elevated structure and the LIRR tracks on Atlantic Avenue to the Broadway Ferry. The latter service was summer only, alternated with Brooklyn United trainis. The service to Sands Street ended with electrication and rebuilding of the Atlantic Terminal. But the summer only service ended only with openjing of Penn Station, and had the earliest mu cars replacing the tank engines (I think Forneys) with mp41 Gibbs cars and wood trailers for the LIRR alternating with comoposite 1300-series convertables for BU, and extension over the Wiliiamsburg Bridge first to Essex and Delancy and then very briefly to Chambers Street and Center Street.
Seattle, Philadelphia and Dayton Ohio also run trolley buses. Boston has one line that uses dual-modes to serve the airport.
When this elevated railway was electrified in the 1890s, six of its steamers went to a railroad that operated them for a time over the tracks of a different elevated. I'm looking for the owners of the steamers and the elevated railway names.
Vancouver still runs trolley buses. It's the last system in Canada. Hamilton ran them until 1992 or so. Not sure about the States but I'm sure Boston and San Francisco still have them.
Dave and Rob:
A little off topic, but how many US and Canadian cities still use trolley buses? I remember riding one in Winnipeg about 50 or 60 years ago.
Ed Burns
You got enough answers right. The new light rail line is the Riverside, Highland Branch, Green D. Line. PCC were needed to run this line, so they were taken from Waternown-Harvard-North Cambridge and Waverly-Harvard-North-Cambrdge. Buses could not be substituted because of the Harvard Square underground interchange, and left-hand-door trolleybuses were required. So the seven-year-old trolleybus system running south from Forest Hills Station, three trolleybus lines where there were once five streetcar lines, was scrapped. Actually the last line converted to trolley bus, Araborway - Cleary Square, lasted only 5-12 years.
The streetcar-to-bus-and-trolleybus conversion started in 1950 and ended in 1952. The end of trolleybus operation came in 1957. The Harvard Square system was converted from streetcar to trolleybus in 1958.
The existing line for which the just-overhauled Type 5 was heading was and is the Ashmont - Mattapn line, which had been conencted to Arborway the day before by the Araborway - Mattapan line, sharing Cleary Square line trackage to the Commings Highway intersection. The could still find usable track up to Egleston, then to Mattapan on the Blue Hill Avenue line that did not go bus until 1955. Now Ashmonst-Mattapan cars go via rapid transit tracks to be overhauled at the Red Line's rapid transit shop.
I'm guessing this is Boston, since the left hand doors are pretty much a Boston feature, and San Francisco has more than 4% street running. I can't quite come up with a recent light rail replacement, unless this has to do with the 1959 Riverside ("D" Green ) Line, which led to the downgrading of the "A" Watertown route. I'm guessing the shop is the T's Watertown shop. I think the Harvard Square loop has left hand boarding, which would make the conversion route the 71 Watertown/Harvard.
Need further hints?
Hint: The specific trolleybuses had a feature peculiar to this transit system and were bought new. Other similar trolleybuses bought second-hand did not have this feature but did not operate on the specific subsystem, but elsewhere in the main system. This feature was necessary where they operated on the subsystem because of one specific boarding and unloading location, carrying on a practice of the streetcars they replaced. Which was also true of where they operated until more recently replaced by new trolleybuses, that also have this feature unique to this system and continue the practice of left-jand boarding and unloading at a specific location.
Also the overall system continiues streetcar operation, currently, on-street operation with lanes shared by other vehicles consitutes only about 4% of the overall rail track miles of the system, and currenty the streetcars operate on what could only be termed as a light rail, not streetcar operation.
An insteresting bus and trolleybus conversion story and the question follows. Four fairly important streetcar lines and one unimportant one, but part of the same sub-network, were replaced, one fairly important one by buses, slightly rerouted to cover the unimportant one, and the other three by trolleybuses. The day after the last of the three to trolleybuses was converted, a shopman had to deliver a car to a still operatinig line, that is operating today. The direct route to deliver the car included operatoin on one of the lines that had been converted to trolleybuses. All was well until he came to the very first major wired intersection, and he stopped in time to prevent the trolleypole from flying off the wire. He figured out what happened, wrong-railed on this street trackage slowly with bell sounding, and delivered the car via tracks still in service. He was lucky that it happened to be a double-end car.
The trolleybus installation lasted only seven years. Through a sort of domino effect, the opening of a fine new light rail line spelled the demise of the trolleybus installation, and the subsystem is now all bus.
What major transit ssytem, which lines, and what exactly was the reason for the demise of the trolleybus system and where did these trolleybuses operate afterward? The major system still operates streetcars and trolleybuses. And all this happened in a time-frame suitable for this forum.
Bay State did not connect to other lines in New Hampshire, but at Lowell and possibly at other points it did connect with another line that ran to New Hampshire, to Nashua, then connections to Manchester and Concord.
Close enough. The Atlantic Shore Line had no physical connections to any companies outside Maine, except for a line of the Dover NH Street Railway to Rochester NH, which did not connect to any other lines in New Hampshire. The Berkshire Street railway wound up from Pittsfield through North Adams to Bennington and then to Hoosick Falls NY, where it met up with New York systems. The gap in New York was between Fonda and Little Falls.
Possibly the eastern gap you are looking for`is Kittery - Portsmouth,NH, across Kittery bay, with the ferry service provided by an interurban-owned ferry boat, the Kittery, owned by the Atlantic Shore interuban, running north to Kennibunkport, ME,and connecting with lines running further north.
Geenrally, when such questions were asked back in the days of my youth, volunteering for office labor at the Hoboken Terminal office of the Electric Railroaders Association, such ferry boat crossings were not considered gaps. But the gap north of Hudson, NY was known. So I question a route through southern Vermont linking Massachusetts and New York, and I hope you will supply details.
I think the western gap was Fonda to Herkima Falls, NY.
The Bay State, later the Eastern Mass., did not connect with any other line in New Hampshire but did run to Portsmouth.
ןNCORRECT ABOUT CONCORD, A LOCAL CONCORD STREETCAR COULD GET YOU TO HOOKSET OR SOMETHING SIMILAR, A BIT FURTHER WEST OR NORTH
SO ONE OF THE MASSSACHUSETTS LINES RAN INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE AND DID NOT CONNECT WITH ANY OTHER NEW HAMPSHIRE INTERURBAN. OR WAS IT A LINE SOUTH FROJM MAINE?
Consider how you get to Massachusetts from Maine. The gap was a six cent fare zone.
There were connecting lines west from Springfield Mass that (indirectly) got to the Albany New York area via the southwest corner of Vermont.
One could get as far as Concord, the State Capitol, but no further.no
Could you cross New Hampshire by streetcar/ interurban?
EDITED The answer is YES.
After some looking around the internet I found the answer.
I also found this map(there are several others for more states)
New England.
http://www.chicagorailfan.com/maptijne.html
New York.
http://www.chicagorailfan.com/maptijny.html
New York City & New Jersey.
http://www.chicagorailfan.com/maptijnj.html
From this I think I see a gap exists thru the Berkshires of Massachusetts down thru northwest Connecticut to Westchester county in New York. I'm not sure about Vermont.
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