Also, there were more miles of broad guage than standard. Go to it.
Waiting for your question
Fact checking again... Sometimes I have to "go to the books" and can't get the info I want on line. I'll post something this evening.
This resort town, which had both Winter and Summer Pullman service from several cities well into the postwar era, was reached over tracks belonging to a railroad which had abandoned its own line there.
Lake Placid: Leave Grand Central on the N. Y. Central to Troy, then D&H to Saranak Lake (?), then N. Y. Central tracks from there to Lake Placid. Also through sleepers from Boston. Possibly also from Weehawken via the West Shore and Albany. The Schenectity connection to the D&H may have been used, also by sleepers from midwestern points. The Central ran from Utica, as the current Adarondak Scenic does, but all the way to Montreal, with a branch to Saranak Lake (?) and a connection to the D&H there, running through Lake Placid. At one time the D&H had its own branch to Lake Placid.
I ought to Google the Central map and see if Saranac Lake was the name of the connection point. Anyway, the route from GCT was NYCentral - D&H - NY Central.
Close enough. Except in the early years (before WW I) D&H was not involved except as a trackage rights host. D&H owned the track from Saranac Lake to Lake Placid, the remnant of a line that looped around through the woods from just south of Plattsburgh, approaching Saranac Lake and Lake Placid from the west. NYC's Adirondack Division had a short branch from Lake Clear Jct., just west of Saranac, to Saranac to connect to D&H's line. NYC apparently had some ownership rights, as Lake Placid was a "Union Station" even after D&H stopped operating there.
Various NYC trains would bring Pullmans to Utica from points east and west, and the Adirondack Division trains would haul them up to Lake Placid. Then as now, Lake Placid was an all year round resort. The last NYC passenger trains ran around 1960, the last PC freight in 1970. The line was briefly re-opened during the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics by the Adirondack Railway. The track is still intact, but a court fight over lifting the rail between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid continues.
Only one Birney car ever was equipped for conduit, and it kept its trolley poles. All other Birneys of this system were either sold for use elsewhere, for a time leased to another company, and then scrapped, while this car continued in operation until well after WWII, used as long as any part of the system continiued in opertion. Modifications at the time it received the ability to pick-up power from conduit reduced its used as a passenger csrrier, but it was a fantrip car on one occasion.
What, who, where? Number?
daveklepper Only one Birney car ever was equipped for conduit, and it kept its trolley poles. All other Birneys of this system were either sold for use elsewhere, for a time leased to another company, and then scrapped, while this car continued in operation until well after WWII, used as long as any part of the system continiued in opertion. Modifications at the time it received the ability to pick-up power from conduit reduced its used as a passenger csrrier, but it was a fantrip car on one occasion. What, who, where? Number?
A double truck Birney, 516, Washington DC.
What I can not decipher is what company.
I am referring to a single-truck car only. Capitol Transit had lots of "double-truck Birneys," some ex-Providence, and mostly used on the Roselyln - Benning line as short-turns, running rush hours almost all on conduit, between the crossover near the power plant and a crossover in Georgetown near the carhouse. The term "double-truck Birney" was first a railfan term for double-truck lighweights without the usual tapered ends. It was NEVER used officially until the modern "Birney replica" cars started being built.
I have to guess Third Avenue Railway (which also controlled Steinway Lines) had one of the Birneys used on some of the outer extension lines equipped so it could handle a plow. It seems pretty hard to believe they found enough room underneath to put a usable hanger.
They did. The answer is in the Cox Birney book, what the car was then purposed. It was not then a revenue car, but was used on one fantrip. It had a different purpose. Brooklyn did the same thing, but of course did not require a plow for conduit pick-up. Both Birneys continued in their new use until total abandonment of the systems, Third Avenue's occasionally seen on the streets of Yolnkers. The Brooklyn one may have outlasted all streetcar paseenger service, somce the wire over the track on MacDonald Avenue continued to be used for frieght for some time. Indeed the Swedish car that was at Branford and then repatriated ran a trip on MacDonald Avenue around 1957 or 1958.
i may some day dig up my photo of the Third Avenue example.
Third Avenue never had conduit light-traffic lines. Its light-traffic lines in Manhatten used battery cars and then were abandoned. And its lighter-trafficed lines in Westhester and The Bronx were still too heavy to use Birneys effectively, as they learned.
Chicago also had a series of Birneys which proved too light for even the lightest lines. CSL turned to its own shops for a two-truck design that used some of the Birney patents.
Ths carbuilder's most famous product combined the builder's name with the car's structural characteristics.
cs: You still have the obligation of looking up the Third Avenue non-revenue Birney in the Cox Birney book and relating what it became, along with its Brooklyn cousin. (cousine?)
Third Avenue, New York Railways, New York and Harlem, and all Washingon, DC operators including the interurban to Baltimore, all used plow carriers mounted under one of the two truck bolsters. London used plow carriers under the center of the car body. Considering the underside of a Birney as one large truck, there was plenty of room, more than under the truck of a double-truck car. All carriers mentioned allowed slide-to-side movement of the plow. Washington the least, and London by far the most, allowing the plow to exit the side of the car body at changeover to overhead allowing a simpler change than Washington and New York, not requiring a man in a plow-pit.
In London, the plow would exit the car body at speed and coast into a position at the stem of the Y created by the two joining slots ready for the plow man on the street to guide the plow by hand to the carrier on the inbound car. There were always a few plows ready in stem of the Y to cover inbalance in outbound and inbound traffic.
The answer to your quesiton can be the Cincinnati Curve-sides. Lots of beautiful Double-truck curved-side lightweight safety cars, both interurban and city cars. Even a single truck lightweight competitive with the Birney, but few sold. Cincinnati did also build Birneys.
But please complete the answer to my question. The Cox Briney Book thread on the Transit forum for Trains Magazine makes it easy.
The Cincinnati curved-side lightweight was one of the more successful lightweight designs, with over 500 built, primarily used in the midwest and southeast. Atlanta even had some with train doors. As far as I know, Wheeling (W. Va.) Traction 639, at Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine, is the only one in operating condition.
I'll drop the answer to the conduit-plow-equipped Birney on the Birney Thread so you can go ahead with this one without waiting for me.
I believe Arden has another in oprating condition. West Penn had eight or ten Cincinnati Cirved-sides for its Allleghanie Division, separate from the Coke Division and abandoned before WWII. Two were not scrapped but transferred to the Coke Division (via Pittsburgh Rys tracks on their own power) to serve the one-car Connolsville - South Connolsville local streetcar line. I rode it in June 1949. One of the two was saved and is at Arden, along with other Pitttsburgh-gauge equipment.
In North America there is a trolley subway disused before WWII, because the surface tracks leading to it were abandoned, but has been put back in revenue service with new surface tracks leading to it. It connects to another trolley subway that has been in continiuous use since both were constructed and put into operation. Where is it, what where the routes that used it, and what uses it now?
I'll kill one debt here, and make an answer as well.
TARS Birney 1656 was repurposed as a rail grinder in 1932. This is the reason it was also equipped for conduit operation.
I thnk you're referring to MBTA's reuse of one of the Boston streetcar tunnels to reach the new Fenway portal, opened in 1959 for what is now the "D" branch of the Green Line. The new tunnel reused the short tunnel leading to the Boylson St. incline closed in 1941. The 39 and 57 lines using the incline were rerouted through the Huntington Avenue subway portal, today's "E" branch. Of course both the new and old tunnels connected to the original Boston Subway, opened in 1897.
The original entrance to the Boson subway was in the park. It was relocated to the center of Boylston Strewt, and the short tunnel section leading to the in-park incline was closed off and possibly filled in. The place for the Boylston street incline can sill be seen betwen the two tracks east of Arlington Station, and no tunnel section was involved that became disused. The new tunnel to the Riverside Line is west of Kenmore Station branching off the Beacon Street line tunnel.
Look outside Boston for the answer. There is a trolley subway tunnel that got a new use long after abandonment at Broadway Station on the Red Line, where the former trolley station for the Bay View line above the Red Line platforms is in use for emergency reponse training with disused rolling stock inserted there for training purposes, but that is not revenue and transportation use.
However, the operator of the tunnel I am referring to did use PCCs, and it is possible that one may have made a fantrip in the reused tunnel, but no PCCs were ever used in service in the tunnel, first use or current use. The original use involved both double-end and single-end cars. Current use is all double-end modern articulated light rail cars. The route has rail connections at both ends, both involving more than one specific service.
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The surviving West Penn Cincinatti Curveside in Connolsville, in service, Bill Vigrass photograph:
At the time it was released for service (2009) Wheeling 639 was the only operable curved-side. Unlike 832 it had spent time in "adaptive re-use" as part of a doctor's office in Ohio. Both 639 and 832 have the West Penn logo on the side, as the systems were (at least for a while) under common ownership though not connected. 639 (39) was built as broad gauge. Now on Standard C-35P trucks fom a Boston type 5 instead of the original Cincinnati arch bar.
http://chench1536.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=537408
Sorry to learn that the trucks are not authentic, especially since the Type 5 trucks are not as well known for a smooth ride as the Cincis are. Have they kept the original trucks and can they be converted for standard gauge? I have respect for the Cinci truck because of the smooth ride they provided on my multiple LVT Liberty Bell trips.
Another hint. The service that uses the old rehabiitated tunnel connects with both electric and diesel rail service at both ends. But one end is only one "mode" and the other end has four modes. Maybe I should say "all" four modes. OK, no cable car or funicular or roller coaster.
Ah. I was a little too far east. The Broad Street light rail line in Newark (which runs between Broad St Newark (DL&W) and Newark Penn (PRR and PATH)) serving NJT and Amtrak lines operated with both diesel and electric power along with PATH rapid transit. It reaches the #7 City Subway via a piece of a once-abandoned branch, along with a bit of new tunnel, the branch having served long ago (and only for a few years) as a connector to the Public Service of NJ Terminal in Newark.
Wheeling Transit 639 didn't come with trucks. The only Cincinnati trucks in Seashore's collection are on LVT 1030, placed there by LVT (from scrapped 204) 'cause the original Commonwealth trucks didn't clear P&W's third rail.
If Seashore has the original Commonwealth trucks, they could use them under LVT 1050/IR 55 and use the Cincinatti trucks under the Curved-side.
Sadly, the Commonwealth trucks off IRR 55 (LVT 1030) were lost somewhere in LVT ownership. Since it is displayed in LVT colors as 1030, the arch-bars are correct. 639 is an interesting car, set up for one man or two man service, with one-man safety features. For Seashore, type 5 trucks were relatively easy to recondition. 639 came without seats, too. They were built on frames from contemporary Cincinnati-built Chicago 4000-series L cars.
And you have another question to ask
Of several streetar subways built, this one is one of two that operated left-handed in the subway, and the first abandoned.
Rochester
The Rochester subway operated left-handed so that center platforms could be used. It was abandoned in 1956. The other one, on the Cleveland Transit System approaching Terminal Tower, is still in operation by Cleveland's RTA.
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