rcdrye The diners and bar-lounges were scrapped in the early 1970s. The one full parlor car was converted to a commuter coach and lasted into Metra service. The Coach-Parlor and coach-lounge were rebuilt into "sip'n'Snack" cars in the early 1960s with 24 lower- and 12 upper-level cafe seats and a small kitchen in one end of the car. Both coach-cafes and all 10 full coaches were leased to and later bought by Amtrak, most retired and scrapped in the early 1990s. Two of the full coaches were converted to cab-coaches in the early 1980s. Arthur Dubin's "More Classic Trains" (Kalmbach 1974) has interior shots of the parlor and coach-lounge on pages 490 and 491. Other than wider seat spacing and more padding, not much difference in the coaches. So here's a new question on Dave's subject: Santa Fe's first production Hi-Level coaches had three series, two with 68 seats and one larger series with 72 seats. Why the two 68-seat series?
The diners and bar-lounges were scrapped in the early 1970s. The one full parlor car was converted to a commuter coach and lasted into Metra service. The Coach-Parlor and coach-lounge were rebuilt into "sip'n'Snack" cars in the early 1960s with 24 lower- and 12 upper-level cafe seats and a small kitchen in one end of the car. Both coach-cafes and all 10 full coaches were leased to and later bought by Amtrak, most retired and scrapped in the early 1990s. Two of the full coaches were converted to cab-coaches in the early 1980s. Arthur Dubin's "More Classic Trains" (Kalmbach 1974) has interior shots of the parlor and coach-lounge on pages 490 and 491. Other than wider seat spacing and more padding, not much difference in the coaches.
So here's a new question on Dave's subject: Santa Fe's first production Hi-Level coaches had three series, two with 68 seats and one larger series with 72 seats. Why the two 68-seat series?
Johnny
The C&NW cars are the four I was asking for. Their false roofs were full-length. If I recall correctly, the AT&SF cars were rather odd, with most of the roof at regular level, and then at the dorm end a tapered rise to match the high-level cars. Much like the front of the Talgos matching FP40 Amtrak locomotives. The long-distancNW and converted to regular commuter gallery cars. Wha happened to the two diners and two lounges?
And your question, certainly.
C&NW had two 56-seat diners and two tavern-lounge cars modified with false roofs to match the 12 long-distance bilevels they got in 1958 for Flambeau 400 and Peninsula 400 service. They served in Milwaukee 400 service as well.
AT&SF modified six baggage-dormitories with Hi-level roof adapters for El Capitan service.
I am sure that the U.S. Post Office did not want to pay the clerks for time that they could not work, so they detrained in Noyes--and waited from about six in the morning to about nine at night before going back to the Twin Cities. I hope there was a decent place for them to sleep in Noyes.
In the years immediately before Amtrak and possibly into the Amtrak era and operated by Amtrak, there were two or four pieces of passenger rolliing stock that were clearly single-level cars, but had been modified with false high roofs to match the double-deck cars operated with them. Railroad, names of trains, and reason, please.
Central Vermont/CN and Rutland trains operating into Montreal on CN trackage rights carried RPOs across the border. Depending on the RPO contract they were locked at Rouses Point NY or Alburgh Vt. on the Rutland, and St Albans or Enosburgh Falls Vt. on the CV/CN. CN/Grand Trunk trains to Portland Me. carried CNR-owned RPOs with "United States Mail Railway Post Office" lettering on the sides to handle Island Pond Vt - Portland Me mail.
Soo Line's Winipeger also carried a locked RPO from Noyes to Winnipeg and back. RPO clerks got off at Noyes.
Dave:
Thank you for the explanation. Next question to you.
Ed Burns
Possibly if if ran through to Winnapeg, two cars would be required instead of one. And it was a car for USA mail only. It was not under Canadian regulations, and mail picked up on the trip to Noyes for return to St. Paul and forwarding might have required custom inspection, etc. of the car, unnecessarily delaying the train.
I think the characteristic of dropping the RPO just before or at the border was characteristics of most USA-Canada and USA-Mexico trains. There were probabloy exceptions arranged by both governmentns, but they must have been rare if any. I suspect most USA-Canada and USA-Mexico mail went in closed-puch service in mail storage cars,in the days before air-mail was common.
Rob and All:
The Great Northern's Winnipeg Limited carried an RPO car from St. Paul to Noyes, Minnesota. Why wasn't the carried to Winnipeg for operating convenience?
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis,
That would be them. They only lasted until about 1966 in Golden State service, being replaced by a club-diner or grill car after the GS was cut back to El Paso. From RI Technical society records, Pacific (Atlantic) Shore survived on the RI until 1979, eventually ending up at the Western New York Railway Historical Society.
Your question, Ed!
Are you looking for the NYC Atlantic Shore and Lake Shore? Both show at post WWII cars and were sold to the RI in 3/1959.
The Atlantic Shore became the Pacific Shore, while the Lake Shore remained the Lake Shore.
Car's weren't named after cities. As a hint, both cars had two word names before and after the sale.
My guess is that the original owner was the NYCentral, for the 20th Century, and the second owner was the GM&O, with Chicago remaining Chicago, and New York becoming St. Louis. Just guessing.
A pair of midtrain lounge cars built for a prewar streamliner was resold in 1959 for further service, with the barber shops rebuilt into card rooms. The name of one of the two cars was changed to reflect the new run's endpoints, the other was unchanged. Car names, selling and buying railroads.
Apologies for a needed correction. It is the 111 bus route, not the 110. The 111 starts from Chelsea and goes to Woodlawn approximating the old Eastern Mass and then Boston El route. The Eastern Mass main shops were located on the southwest side of the double-track line about half-way between Chelsea and Woodlawn. At Woodlawn, both the 111 and the 110 run east to Revere. This portion of both lines was never a streetcar route as far as I know, but there was a streetcar route from Revere to Everet that remained as a service conenction, some of it single-track, north of Woodlawn, until 1951, with the replacement if the East Boston-Chelsea-Revere streetcars with trolleybuses, buses, and the extension of the East Boston Tunnel (now the Blue line).
Look forward to your question.
I have not looked at the current map, but I assume from what you say that the 110 bus covers both the original Boston Elevated Ry line from Everett to Woodlawn and then continues on to Chelsea Square, near the Mystic River, which covers what was the ex-EAstern Mass line, and the EMSRy shops were about in the middle of that line. I assume that before 1936 and the rebuilding of the Chelsea Bridge, the line may have run through to the Brattle St. loop in the subway, at what was then Scolley Sq., now Government Center. The other ENSRy lines at Chelsie Square did run through, and the replacement EM buses ran through the then-new Sumner Tunnel to Haymarket Sq. It would be logical for the T to have long since combined the two lines to Woodlawn into one throiugh route. The tracks to Rivered Beach from Chelsei Square were Eastern Mass tracks and continued to Lynn and Salem. The Revere Carhouse was an EM carhouse, but not the main shops, and was a Boston El carhouse 1936 on. The El routed the Revere via Chelsie cars to Maverick via its own Meridian Street line, and the Lynn and Salem lines became EM buses via the Sumner Tunnel to Haymarket Sq. The heavy Revere via Orient Hieghts EM line was its one line into Maverick, using El's tracks between Maverick and Orient Heights, so it stayed the same under El operation.
Your question.
It looks like the ex-EMRy 111 line, from Chelsea to Revere. EMRy shops in Revere? I think the cemetery is Woodlawn, which would make the BERy/MTA line the 110 from Wellington, near the T's Everett Shops.
I thought that the shops the Eastern Mass used in New Bedford were actually on the New Bedford system. In 1937, Eastern Mass did not run any streetcar lines that connected with the New Bedford system, and their use of the shops there ended much earlier. Also, the New Bedford system, if that is the supposed to be the city system mentioned in my question, cannot fit the question becdause it certainly did not pioneer light rail. In 1937 the city system operated two lines that could be fully described as light rail, two others mostly light rail, and four streetcar lines that shared the major donwtown off-street operaotin that all these mentioned light rail lines used, also used by Eastern Mass up to 1936. The city system also had one pure light rail line tht did not go downtown. The successor still does, plus the two of 1937, one of the two partial, but cut back, and one more recent post WWII light rail line.
lThe city system's line formerly Eastern Mass's, where the 1937 EM Main Shops were lolcated, ran from a transfer point near a river to a cemetary. At the cemetary it almost met a city system streetcar line that started at an important transfer station adjacent to the city system's huge main shops complex. Both a system bus lines today, so you can figure out which is the line.
This sounds like the Eastern Mass Street Railway's operation in conjunction with MBTA. Eastern Mass's main shops were in New Bedford MA on that city system's lines. The rest of EMSRy's operations were around Boston. One EMSRy car is operational, another is nearing completion and a third has had major steelwork done on it at Seashore Trolley Museum.
both the city system and the suburban system are part of one big authority that also runs commuter trains. city system was a pioneer in light rail and operates more light rail than it did in 1937, but no strictly streetcars. in 1937 it operated about 40 streetcars, half fairly modern lightweights, and the rest deck-roof semi-convertables, that had been bought from the suburban system. except for one car, these lightweights were the most modern and comfortable cars on the city system. cars of the same type ran on two of the suburban systems lines, and cars of the older type saw service on all three.
Note that the year of my question should be 1937, not 1940. However, even after the suburban system's shops closed, the track and wire were left in place until summer 1941 and were listed as non-revenue trackage, possibly because the city system was thinking of some new use for the suburban system's shops.
Before digging into Dave's question... WB&A's Terrminal in Baltimore was reached (after 1921) by standard gauge tracks on Pratt St that were not part of the Baltimore streetcar system. B&O's Pratt St trackage was also on Pratt St, using separate rails interleaved with WB&A's. WB&A's 1200 V DC overhead continued into the terminal.
In doing all the research, I also used Wikapedia, which admittadly cannot be definitive, and it stated that at one time the line to Washington did use third rail. This is an error, obviously, since I never read it anywhere else. But the conduit was used and that was the pole-free operation.
In WB&A's latter days, the dual-gauge operation in Baltimore was eliminated by its sharing the B&O RofW into Camden Station, an arrangement retained by the B&A.
In 1937, a suburban transit system's main streetcar repair shop was located off the tracks of the city system with which it connected, on a line that was just recently converted to buses by the city system, but for which track was maintained for the benefit of the suburban system. At one time, the line and three or four others in the same are had been part of the suburban system. In 1940, the suburban system, which at one time had operated somewhere around 30 trolley lines, was only running three, in two separated division, connected by tracks of the city system, and connected to the main shop mentioned by a complex series of service tracks that once saw passenger service. Two of the three remaining streetcar lines of the suburban system ran in part over tracks of the city system. All three of the suburban system's streetcar lines lasted through WWII, two with heavy enough traffic to occasionally borrow city system cars for rush hour service, and all three routes have some bus service today. The shops did not survive into WWII, and repair work during WWII was handled by the city system's vast shops. Ditto scrapping after conversion of each line to bus.
Name the city and suburban systems, the car line where the shops were located, and the three remaining suburban streetcar lines and their end-points. Connections at end-points are optional but requested.
And any other informationi you may care to provide, including car types and dates of construction.
You are correct. The Double wire (originally 750v AC) was in Annapolis, with a short pole used for the ground on the large interurbans. The second wire was dropped when the tracks were re-electrified at 600VDC. The original electrification was 3300 VAC, replaced by 1200 VDC in just a couple of years. Before 1921 WB&A shared track with the Baltimore streetcar system which used the cable gauge of 5'4 1/2" (after 1921 WB&A shared a gantlet with B&O's Pratt St line, home of the Dockside switchers). Both Naval Academy Junction - Annapolis (ex B&O) and Baltimore - Annapolis (Annapolis Short Line) were built as steam roads. Conduit operation in Washington while the cars were AC-equipped lasted only a very short time. Even though the syndicate that built the WB&A had ties to the one that built the Aurora Elgin and Chicago around the same time, no third rail was used.
For a picture of a WB&A car with double poles
http://www.trbimg.com/img-542db079/turbine/bal-wba-20141002
The Washington Baltimore and Annapolis The double wire is new to me, but certainly may have once been a requirement for street trackiage in either Washington or Baltimore. I believe there were stretches of 1200V on the Washington line, and originally there was some 600V third rail operation, and of course conduit operatoin in Washington. The original line to Annapolis was a steam railroad. And the Baltimore - Annapolis line did last longer
1. no, it was not near Cincinnati
2. no, but parts of it were built as standard gauge steam railroads
3. standard gauge, but it did operate for a time on tracks shared with a different gauge
4. no. Part of it was taken over by another operation and lasted a bit longer as an interurban.
1. Did it operate out of Cincinnati?
2. Was it originally constructed as a narrow gauge steam railwau?
3 Was it broad or standard gauge?
4. After abadonment, was a section retained as a city suburban streetcar line?
This interurban's cars were initially equipped to operate at three different voltage/current combinations, including one which required dual poles, and one which didn't require poles.
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