When the Chicago Elevated Railways Collateral Trust, an earlier version of Chicago Rapid Transit, bought its first steel cars, none of them were assigned to one of the four operating companies. Name the company and the reason.
PCCs, the two of the four?
We have a winner, rcdrye has the next question.
As an aside, all of the trolley buses under CSL were owned by Chicago Railways and all four companies owned new buses.
CSSHEGEWISCH Chicago Surface Lines was strictly an operating entity. What were the names of the FOUR underlying companies that continued to exist and actually owned the equipment (streetcars, trolley buses, buses, etc.)?
Chicago Surface Lines was strictly an operating entity. What were the names of the FOUR underlying companies that continued to exist and actually owned the equipment (streetcars, trolley buses, buses, etc.)?
Chicago Railways (North Side)
Chicago City Railway (South Side)
Calumet & South Chicago Railway (Far Southeast side)
Southern Street Railway (Roosevelt Road)
Although all four owned cars, during the CSL era only CRys and CCRy received new ones. C&SC did get one car out of a new order in the 1920s to replace a destroyed car. CRys shops were on the West Side near the Lake Street L's Hamlin shops, CCRys shop at 77th and Vincennes.
I might be the guilty one for the BERA request, because I regularly visit the website, www.shorelinetrolley.org, and log in with my password. I did use a photo from the website, no problem, we are even encouraged for the added publicity for the museum, but I believe it was not one this thread and considerably earlier than one week ago (convertables and semi-convertables). If I had the edit button, I might be able to experiment to what post might have caused it. Why would it ask you for that information and not ask me? There is not any automatic sign-in.
Can I ask the moderator to please run a malwear and virus check on the Kalmbach website. Possibly what happened is that I incurred a virus that my AVG anti-virus protection did not catch before it somehow infected the Kalmbach website, and this virus transferred the stuff from one email contact to another, a new type of annoyance virus.
Yes ...I recieve the Bera request as well, for maybe week or more now.
Can someone fix the reason -- almost certainly hot-linking a photo illegally -- why I am being asked for a BERA name-and-password login every time I go to read this thread?
CSSHEGEWISCH The cars in this series were called "flat-door Six's" since their doors were flat and did not match the carbody.
The cars in this series were called "flat-door Six's" since their doors were flat and did not match the carbody.
Thats it!
Compare pictures of the 6001-6200 series with any of the later cars. Look at the doors.
Was it a problem situation, like not enough heat or drafty, or roof leaks?
The outside door controls in the space between the cars were changed pretty quickly. The characteristic that gave them their nickname stayed with the cars until they were scrapped.
Well, they were all popularly called spam-cans because of their overall desing. But I recall that one group of 6000s had door controls on the outside of the cars like New York's R1 - R9s, with the conductor required to stand outside, and the others had sensible door controls inside, I think in the cabs. Don't know the other nickname.
Unless spam-cans is the nickname, opening up on the outside?
Or related to the paint-job?
Chicago's first one hundred PCC rapid transit married pairs (200 cars) had a physical characteristic and nickname due to something that distinguished them from the other two hundred sixty pairs (520 cars) which contained many components recycled from Pullman and St. Louis-built PCC streetcars. What was the nickname?
Thanks for a pretty thorough answer, and thanks for the photos. Needless to say, as a younster, both the Bluebird and the Little Zephyr were far and away my favorite subway cars and I wss angry and upset when they were scrapped.
The Zephyr spent most of its life in service on the Franklin Avenue shuttle, and the Bluebird in rush-hour-only service on 14th-Street=Canarsie. Four of the five mu cars made up the usual train. It regularly held the 4:55 PM departure from 8th Avenue for Canarsie, the last one in the evening making all stops, the next trains to both Lefferts and Canarsie skipping 1st Avenue to Myrtle, with short-turn trains using B-types making all stops to Myrtle and then changing ends on the middle track just east of that station.
As long as PCCs operated on the streets of Brooklyn, up to middle of 1954, maintenance was not a problem, because most parts were common with the PCC streetcars, and Coney Island shops would just send a work motor to 9th Avenue carhouse for anything needed and not at hand. Once streetcar service ended, they really became orphans. There was an attempt to sell them to another property, but they were too wide for Chicago, and Cleveland had already ordered its own "Bluebirds." Boston, with its vast PCC fleet, could have used them on Cambridge - Dorchester (Red Line), but was not interested.
BMT/MTA Bluebirds. Clark Equipment, which built a very large proportion of PCC trucks, actually built the carbodies as well, the only cars they ever built besides the PCC model B used in various cities as a prototype in the 1930s. The official name was "Compartment Car". After the original car was accepted, BMT ordered 50 more just before BMT was taken over by the MTA, which cancelled the order after only five more cars were built. The prototype had no couplers or MU, the other 5 could operate in multiple. Each car had three sections riding on four trucks, similar to the later PCC experimentals built for Chicago in 1946 and 1947. Orphans on the MTA roster, they were all retired by 1957. Dave Klepper should have the best info on where they operated.
CLS&SB had two streetcar lines, the C&IAL, and a line from Gary to Tolleston (now part of Gary), both of which were operated locally, meeting the main line trains at Hammond and Gary respectively. I think you're thinking of the Hammond Whiting & East Chicago, which ran joint service with Chicago City Railway/Chicago Surface Lines until 1940 to both Hammond and East Chicago. The CLS&SB main line tracks ended at the state line, with the connecting Kensington and Eastern owned by Illinois Central and leased to CLS&SB/CSS&SB. The current operator NICTD only recently bought the line from CN.
Knew that, but there is some indication that their cars did run through to E. Chicago. How I don't know. But you should know enough to give a try at answering my question. The nickname was a pretty one, and reflected an unusual characteristic of the equipmenet, unusual for the property where in ran, under both owners. Although not unusual elsewhere and not particularly related to its PCC technology.
The Chicago and Indiana Air Line was entirely inside Indiana. The line was never part of the CLS&SB/CSS&SB main line, always a local line. Once the Hammond Whiting and East Chicago built a parallel line, the former C&IAL was abandoned. The C&IAL was not connected at all with the later Chicago and New York Air Line, which ended up at around 13 miles from Goodrum to LaPorte indiana, and briefly was part of the Gary Railways system.
So from Hammond to East Chicago, they used another company's tracks? Or was it just a case of an Iillinois subsidiary of an Indiana company.
What were the first true PCC rapid transit cars and what led to their fairlyl early scrapping at the same time as new PCC rapid transit cars were being built? Where did they run regularly while they were operated?
The train comoposed of them had a good nickname. What was it?
The C&IAL ran from Hammond to Indiana Harbor, a whopping 3.4 miles. It was abandoned in the 'teens.
You got it. Take it away, Dave.
Chicago and Indiana Airline RR, E. Chicago to Indiana Harbor
South Shore's earliest predecessor began operations as a street railway. What was the name of this predecessor and what was the route of the streetcar operation?
CA&E bought 5 full coaches and 3 combines from the estate of the abandoned Washington Baltimore and Annapolis. The cars, built by Cincinnati in 1913, were WB&A's first all-steel cars. CA&E modified the vestibules for "L" clearance, and removed the 1200 volt motors, retaining the MU controls so the cars could be used as control trailers. CA&E usually used them in longer trains until the very last couple of years. One of CA&E's longest trains, "The Cannonball", was only allowed 7 powered cars during the morning rush, so a "sinker" allowed an eight car train. During WW II, the North Shore leased CA&E equipment on weekends to handle liberty traffic from Great Lakes and Fort Sheridan, which resulted in the cars getting as far as Milwaukee.
The purchasing railroad was Chicago Aurora & Elgin, and the selling road was the Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis.
Time to kick in a new question... This midwestern interurban, which had steel cars bought new from three different builders, bought used steel cars in the late 1930s from a line that had recently discontinued service. These cars were even older than the interurban's own, and had another issue that resulted in the decision to set them up as control trailers. Name the buying and selling railroads.
A one-block walk in the middle of a Chicago winter can be miserable. Departing the South Shore train and transferring to a Chicago Surface Lines streetcar at Central Station meant staying indoors at the time this trip was made, since the stop for the streetcar was then within the Central Station train shed. Then one could board the North Shore train at the Roosevelt Avenue station without a one-block walk and have a better choice of seats possibly than at a Loop Station. As late as 1948 this is the option I would choose, especially to get the railfan seat on an Electroliner.
Of course you're right. It's only a block or so from Randolph St (cough - "Millenium") to the (recently closed) Randolph and Wabash L station. On the other hand, CSS&SB shared the street with streetcars in South Bend and East Chicago, so you could just transfer...
I think the most interesting thing was how short the window was to make some of the trips. Even with that there are records of a chartered New York State Railways car going from Utica to the Kentucky Derby, with a side trip to Detroit on the way back. All segments ran from hotel to hotel, so it took quite a few days. That trip was only possible for about a six year window.
Most of the lines didn't really do interline, they just served the same towns, so connections were often casual at best. To take a sixty mile trip from Concord NH to Boston MA, for example, took six cars running on the tracks of eight or nine companies, where it was a one-seat ride on the Boston and Maine.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter