Indiana RR (actually Indiana Service Corp) sold three RPOs 375-377 to the South Shore in the 1940s. 375 and 377 became South Shore box trailers 503-504, used mainly in newspaper service. 376 was rebuilt by South Shore to line car 1100, retired in 2003, now at Illinois Railway Museum. The cars were built for ISC as baggage-coaches by St. Louis in 1925, rebuilt to RPO-coaches by IRR around 1932.
Even though Indiana RR appeared to be one railroad, the Indiana Service Corp lines remained under ISC ownership. The last section of the IRR to operate passenger service, a franchise run from the edge of Indianapolis to Seymour Indiana, was actually run by ISC (with IRR cars) after IRR shut down.
Does the AutoRailer from Virginia used as a line car count for this answer? Or the car it towed, rebuilt in '47 from an Indiana Railroad car (376?)
A bit of a hint. The cars in question were acquired secondhand from another interurban.
South Shore Line's passenger equipment from the Insull era was built to steam railroad standards and dimensions, except for the length. What was the last equipment owned and operated by South Shore that was NOT built to steam road specs?
We are waiting forCSS's Question.
CSSHEGEWISCHThe crook in question is Charles Tyson Yerkes, involved with the North Chicago Street Ry, Northwestern Elevated RR, and host of other operations in Chicago. The mechanical engineer is Frank Hedley.
Mr. Yerkes' street railway properties ended up as Chicago Union Traction sometime after he left, whose successor lines inside and outside City limits became Chicago Railways, Chicago & West Towns, and Evanston Ry. Chicago Railways was one of the underlying companies of Chicago Surface Lines.
The Rapid Transit companies included the Lake Street Elevated, the Northwestern Elevated, the Union Elevated and the Union Consolidated Elevated. Today's Loop legs stem from the last three. The only sections built while any of the companies were under his control that have since been demolished are the Market Street branch of the Lake Street, and the section of the Union Consolidated on Van Buren that formerly connected with the Metropolitan.
Frank Hedley's trucks were used on Lake Street and Northwestern cars in Chicago, and also appeared in London on several Underground lines.
Yerkes first appearance in Chicago traction was quite early. Among other things he was responsible for the North Chicago Street Railway's choice of the "Low & Grim" top grip for North Side lines in an effort to evade the Cable Trust's patents. He was also involved in many other Chicago businesses, not to mention the pockets of many Chicago Aldermen.
The crook in question is Charles Tyson Yerkes, involved with the North Chicago Street Ry, Northwestern Elevated RR, and host of other operations in Chicago. The mechanical engineer is Frank Hedley.
SD70Dude Was he involved in the Chicago Traction Wars?
Was he involved in the Chicago Traction Wars?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
The point of the question was to identify the gentleman who built the (still existing) rapid transit lines in the U.S. City with the one who was responsible for developing the lines in London. His activities in the U.S. city involved surface traction properties as well as Rapid Transit. His street railway properties involved horse, cable and electric operation. The second gent was his master mechanic, who developed a truck design used only in London and ???
The main person I'm looking for was born in Philadelphia but was not involved in traction there. He also locked horns with J.P. Morgan in London when Morgan tried to muscle in on the Underground. His activities in the U.S. city were legendary in a city where financial corruption was expected. Some of his machinations made possible the thing for which a downtown district is named.
The American City is Philadelphia, ans the London Underground was second to the Liverpool - Mersey line, as noted on my posting of his UK trip:
Before starting to describe my exploits on the Isle of Man I want to mention two messages I received,from Russ Jackson and Nigel Eames, about the electric MU cars that originated service through the Mersey Tunnel, over which I rode on the previous day. Nigel wrote that these cars, built in 1903, were based on similar equipment built for electric lines in the U. S., specifically the Market Street subwayelevated in Philadelphia. He stated that they operated until 1956, and described them as "matchboard-sided eMUs, built in Birkenhead by Milnes, but unmistakably American in appearance." He further indicated that the cars had clerestories with some of the trailers originally having open gates at their ends, which were enclosed later.Russ stated that the railway to "the peninsula was the first line in the UK to use true eMU cars, withequipment by Westinghouse based on what they had designed for U. S. service to compete with theSprague/GE equipment developed for the South Side 'L' in Chicago. All previous UK multiple-carelectric trains - such as those for the Liverpool Overhead Railway, were motor-trailer sets with allmotors fed from the manual controller in the head cab, the power lines running thru the trailer cars to reach motors elsewhere in the train, making them unit trains of fixed length."Here's a photo of these fine looking eMUs from the internet. http://www.emus.co.uk/gallery
One of London's Underground lines has some american characteristics even today, with "cars" instead of "carriages". The builders and operators had considerable influence on an American City's transit system, with lines built by them remaining in service today substantially as built before the gentlemen involved headed overseas around the turn of the last century. Name the city, and at least one of the people involved. If you can, name the chief mechanic, whose truck design was only found in London and this American city.
Waiting for your question.
100%
August Belmont's car "Mineola" is at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in Branford CT. Belmont was one of the IRT's founders.
From what I can see in photos taken there, it is a wood bodied car, though on a steel frame (called "composite" construction at the time). Its 1904 construction date puts it a bit ahead of the steel cars constructed for the subway. Built by Wason (Springfield MA). The car was apparently on IRT and MTA property until 1947, when it was sold to a scrap dealer, who gave the body to a family member after stripping the trucks and controls. The car body was rediscovered in 1967 and move to Branford in 1972, where the car sits on shop trucks in a storage barn. Originally equipped with two motors and GE type "M" control, it could train with any contemporary IRT car.
Hint: It had an "off-line" name. Still does.
New York's Subways had one special parlor car. When was it built, by whom, for whom, size and materials of construction, where used, where is it now?
Dave has correctly ID'd the Berkshire Street Railway. One of NYNH&H's network of lines, it offered local service in Pittsfield MA as well as service on its cross-country lines. For about two years a connection with the Springfield Street Railway's "Huckleberry Line" broke Berkshire's isolation from the rest of the New England network, but after 1917 it was again isolated. The 20 mile gap between its west end at Hoosick Falls NY and United RRs at Troy was one of two (the other was Fonda-Little Falls NY) that prevented unbroken electric railway travel from Portsmouth NH to Elkhart Lake WI.
The parlor car "Berkshire Hills" is just a frame under a tarp at the moment. The Museum acquired it in 1996 after the building it was attached to (in Pittsfield MA) burned down. A lot of the original car was lost in its re-use, and more in the fire.
Berkshire Street Railways other parlor car, the "Bennington", was leased from Springfield Street Railway. It and four others like it were virtually identical to Manchester & Nashua Railway's cars 1-6, built at the same time (1906) by Laconia. M&N car 4 (renumbered 32) became part of the Manchester (NH) Street Railway's fleet. Renumbered again to 38(II), it was the second car acquired by Seashore in 1940. With some finish work scheduled for this spring, and new interior lighting, it will be back in service as a "special" car this season at Seashore.
daveklepperBerkshire Street Railway, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont
...and here's an introduction to that parlor car:
https://collection.trolleymuseum.org/collection/national/297
Berkshire Street Railway, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont
This is quite an aside. My mother, who went to school in NOrthfield, Mass. a little over 100 years ago, said that if you knew the proper transfer points you could travel all over New England for 5 cents (I doubt that she considered traavel in northern Maine).
Johnny
PE operated only in California. Even though the parlor service on this railway operated in only two states, the line operated in four.
The line was only connected to the rest of the electric railway network for about two years just before World War I, even though it had ownership in common with other lines in the region. When the connecting line folded there were three short gaps in continuous electric railway lines between New England and the midwest, where before there had been only two.
Pacific Electric operated the parlor car on one particular inbound morning and outbound evening service because it was the service the PE President used for his own commutation. It did not have sleeping or showering accomodatons but in other ways was fully equal to a railroad president's car.
This small interurban system, which also operated local streetcars in one city, was owned by a railroad with several other electric railway properties. The distinguishing characteristic of this system was that, at its peak, it operated in four states at the same time. The company still called itself a "Street Railway" even after it became a bus operation. Name the "Street Railway" and the four states.
For a number of years the company operated a parlor car that was as spectacular as any private car of the era.
Yes, except for a few years when the Blue Ridge handled the car between Seneca and Alston,. passing through Anderson. This line was built from Columbia to Greenville. Since it entered Greenvile more or less from the SE, the direction of the car was changed in Greenville --unless time were taken to wye the car there.
Going through Spartanburg would not have involved a change of direction--consider that it would have used the same track in Spartanburg that the Carolina Special used between Hayne and the continuation of the W line down towards Columbia.
Overmod So you're related to Niernsee? That's impressive! (Note to others: this strongly suggests to me that the first state is Georgia and the second South Carolina... have at it.)
So you're related to Niernsee? That's impressive!
(Note to others: this strongly suggests to me that the first state is Georgia and the second South Carolina... have at it.)
Overmodthis strongly suggests to me that the first state is Georgia and the second South Carolina...
The dome of one capitol is covered with gold that was mined in the northern part of the state. The structure at the top of the other capitol is not that which the main architect of the building (he was my step-children's great-grandfather) designed; I do not recall, if I ever knew, just what he did design for the top structure. I understand he also had a hand in the first building of the Smithsonian Institute.
No; Denver-Salt Lake CIty via Pueblo was not really overnight (board, go to bed, wake up not long before detraining) service. Try another area of the country.
Yes, Utah Junction was the starting point of the Denver and Salt Lake.
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