I had posted a photo od a double-end Peter Witt of the 86th Street Line at the Coneyb Islahnd Stillwell Avenue Terminal earlier. Here is a better photo of a similar car on the West End (streetcar) line at the same spot. Note the elervated train above. It a West End Shuttle, rinning between Bay Parkway and Stillwell Avenue during rush hours bwecause of the BMT's shortage of steel cars. These specific elevated cars had subway-type third-rail shoes and were painted green instead of brown to distinguish thasm.
Hello again Dave.
Thanks. Glad to be of help re: Id's and locations when and where I am able to do so. I do know quite a lot but not "everything" -- and still learning new things now as we all are likely.
regards - Joe F
THanks, Joe. And thanks for sending your memories of riding behind steam to me via email. I hope you will post them on the Sunnyside thread with all the correct information.
I would not have thought the 5th Ave El, gone seven years before date-of-photo. But both the Broadway and the Myrtle (at Wyandote) are working today.
You really are a whiz at NYC neighborhoods.
With the location you determined, 8031 could be on one of several lines.
Dave --
The above photo is NOT at Wyandot and Myrtle Ave - and NOT with the BMT 5th Ave EL in background.
The correct location is looking north from Broadway and with Roebling Street at left crossing Broadway and northward under the Williamsburg Bridge ornamental 2 track El structure for the BMT Broadway EL / Jamaica line (over Broadway to the right fo this photo) to get to the Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan to the west, left.
Here below is an interactive GOOGLE Street view link --- to the same scene. You can use your computer mouse to scroll and drive / move around from that scene and see the rest of the area including the Broadway EL main structure which is to the right of this view.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7092788,-73.960488,3a,25.6y,7.56h,92.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sajcI7PNyldkDyEhA4FCSng!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
Here, I thought double-end Witt 8031 was at Wyandot and Myrtle, the south end of the Flushing-Ridgewood line, with 5the Myrtle Avenue Elevated above. But Joe Frank corrected me, looking north from Broadway, Brooklynm, with bthe elevated structure the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, west of Marcy Avenue Station.
Hello Dave
Yes, I gave you ALL the scene info in my email reply to you on the group-email
list !
And yes, I have a few hundred or so of my "Then & Now" photo panels I created -- many with transit related scenes in them.
The Federal Building with the POINTED TOP tower still remains today --- see it on this google inte4ractive street view (you can drive around on the scene) -- looking northwest to Court from Rensen Street -- (you must COPY & PASTE the link to open it)
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6930516,-73.9907567,3a,46.7y,18.22h,96.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfU85kau358jjx3ztwTpgHA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en
In the old (your 1947) photo, that same pointed tower of the Federal Building is seen at the very left edge line top of your photo --- and the ROUND top tower on the large building sits in front of it. In the modern photo, the old Round Top Tower building is long gone --- and you can better see the pointed tower Federal Building at left edge of that photo
Wow! Thanks. Your own website probably has other good then-and-now comparisons.
And I believe you did send me the information that Henry Raudenbush also sent, as follows:
Building on the right is Brooklyn Borough Hall.
Buildinhgb with pointed tower is Brooklyn's Federal Building with courtrooms and post office. Not bin currentb photo?
Here BELOW is my THEN & NOW photo of that B&QT Trolley 6015 on Court Street -- Image below: (Regards - Joe F)
6015, a Brill single-end Peter Witt, is southbounhd on downtown Brooklyn's Court Street just south of Remson Street on the Flatbujsh Avenue Line. The branching trascks without wire connected to the Fulton Street Line on that street, replaced by buses when the Fulton Street Elevsated was demolished west of its Rockaway Avenue Station. (End-of-service, June, 1i940, demolishon 1941.)
Livingston Street was used by the Flatbush Avenue and other lines between Court and Flatbush, one block south of Fulton St.
Joe Frank contributed information added to this caption. His own website compartes this picture with the view today.
9
Double-end 8525, used as a double-ender on this fan-trip, but normally a single-ender on Myrtle Avenue, with sa turnstyle at one end, here on the LaGuardia Airpot - Williamsburg - Junction Blvd. - Grand Avenue Line on Jackson Mill Road.
The interlaced loops at Van Dyck and Richards Streets in tthe Sandy Hook neighborhood, at the southern end of Brooklyn's Crosstown and Erie Basin lines. Detroit, Baltimore, and Cleveland single-end Petyer Witts, and of course single-end PCCs, have different front and rear architecture. Brooklyn and deck-roof Pittsbergh cars had similar front-and-rear arcitecture.
And a few of the two 8500s. one in post-WWII green-and-silver, the other in the traditional cream-an-maroon, same location of the cars, but the photo from the opposite location:
At Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island, a regular 86th Street Line car:
Another photo at the L. I. City Loop, taken on the Coney Island - Hastings trip describes earlier:
Busy Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn
Also June 1947, age 15
Correction: Thev photo was at Bartell-Pritchard, butv t5hec cars are suthbound, notv the northbound cars we rode.
Here is single-end Peter-Witt 6073 on the Nostrand Avenhue Line at the intersection with Flatbush Avenue
.
This photo has a lot of personal history. 1010 is a Coney Island Avenue - Smith Street car from Coney Island. Behind it is a Lorimer Line car, just come from the reversing crossover at the location of the previous phyoto. Standing on the base of the streetcar station standarf is Thomas Lenthal, then Lowenthal. later an active member of the ERA NY Division. My parents bought the black Leica D from his father. a Gerrman refugee photographer, whos family, including Tommy, lived in our brownstone's basement apartment until they could afford something better. He was also a fellow camper at Camp Wahp-kee-nah in Hebron, New Hampshire on Newfound Lake. David Lews, my cousin, older of two sons of Nethanial Lewis (born Nethaniel Levitch) who owned the large drugstoire across from the LIRR Atlantic (Brooklyn) Terminal, and was a classmate at Columbia Grammar Prep., is crossing in front of the PCC we had exited, even though we were to board the Lorimer Line 8000 double-end Peter Witt behind the PCC.
For a long time I had wanted to go from Coney Island to the Yonkers - Hastings Line purely by Trolley. (why not Coney Island - New Rochelle, I don't know.) The route was either McDonald-Vanderbilt or Coney-Island-Smith to Park Row - City Hall. Manhatta, the TATS "T" to 161st Street, the "K"? to Marble Hill, 225th & Broadway, the "C" to the Bronx - Yonkers City Line at West 262nd Street, and the "1" to the hastings line. I almost made it, but north of Main Street, Yonkers, I realized that going all the way would get me home too late for the regular dinner hour; thus off st the stairs doiwn to the NYCentral Glenwood Station, and caught an MU back tgo 125th Street, the Lexingtopn Avenue Subway, and the 86th Street bus crosstyown.
A few weeks later the "T" went bus. But "K" put-ins and pull-outs still operated out of the 65th Street Shop and Carbarn. So. the alternative plan: C. I. Avenue to Bartrell-Pritchard Sq., Lorimer to Williamsburg, Crosstown or Graham to L. I. City, a 15-minute hike to the Vernon Avenue Queensboro Bridge Railway Station, and a short walk from the 2nd Avenue Termiknal to the 65th Street Carbarn and a ":K" just entering service, The plan worked. But just for me and not for my two friends. Because at Long Island City, after vfiewing the Bridge in the distance, they decided to return to Coney Island.
Lorikmer Line at Bartell-Pritchard Square, wher connectionms to the Coney Island Avenue - Smith Street ,line existed.
A small coorrection to the avove phutu shows faintly a distant high-rise.
A Lorimer Line car followed by a 6000-single-end on the Crosstown Line. Rich Allman contributed to the photo restoration. It would be wonderful if some readers identified 8368'd operator and the policeman and were able to give the photo to the families.
The first photo in the previous post was edited from one supplied by Nate Gerstein. The second and third lightly edited photos supplied by James Greller, who authored and co-authored excellent books on Brooklyn rail transit. The last two are mine, of cars awaiting scapping at Coney Island Yard iun 1947.
The 5000s and 5100s were t5he only type of Brooklyn streetcar that ran into WWII that I did not ride.I
The 5000s werwe the first steel Brooklyn streetcars. after 3557, the prototype, center entrance photo provided by Nate Gerstein. Originally, they were center-door entrance-and-exit, two-man cars, but were made into double-end Peter Witts by installing doors into slised-off right corners. The 5100s (originaly 6000s) were sinilar doublr-end trailees, but wpth deck-roofs matching the motor cars that hauked them. Half of this fleet, 50 cars, were converted to singke-end Peter Wiits,
Showing the relationshipo of the streetcar loop to the waterfront. The 4100 converted to single-end -with turnstyle was substituting for the usual 6000 single-end Peter Witt on the Crosstiown Line, bout 8000s were used as frequebntly as 6000s on the Grahaqm Line to Williamsburg Plaza.
The photo is on the 92nd Street, Queens, bridge over the Grand Central Parkway, the stub-end terminal of the Grand Avenue Line, after Mayor LaGuardia forced the streetcars off the convenient loop they had in front of the "New York Municipasl Airport" (later LaGuuardia) Main Building. The 8500s, unlike 8000 - 8499, had a turnstyle at one end for rapid loadind with single-end operation, so only a fan-trip saw them on lines requiring double enders. (You can see a more modern turnstyle in the restored PCC 1001 af Shore Line Trolley Museun.) All cars for single-end operation in Brooklyn received turnstyles.
Another photo on the Grand Avenue line from the fan trip that used two cars, 8532 in the post-WWII green-and-silver exterior, and 8525 in the pre-WWII maroon-and-cream.
Then to the Graham Avenue line, the Manhattan Avenue - Vernon Avene bridge to L. I. City, the loop there, and a waterfront view of the Eastern Distrct Terminal's LI City yard with the Manhattan skyline behind iL
the 8590's were originally regular one-man doeble-end steel safety cars with the Peter Witt door arrangement like all other 8000=series Brooklym streetcars.
But in the late 1920's they received an added feature which shifted them to single-end operating lines. Qestion One: What was this feature?
Here the car is at a stub-end gterminal. The feature was not required on a fan-trip, ao tasking a car normally assigned to lines with loops at both ends to lines requiring double-end cars was a drawer for this fan-trip.
Where is this photo location?
The line did once have a loop here. Who was respomsible for the lkoop's removal an d greater inconvenirnce to people using the facility that might wish to arrive or leave by streetcar?
Double-end Peter Witt is on the Coney Iskland - Bay Ridge Line on 86th St., looking east on 86th St. toward New trecht Avenue, with the West End line above. The Loews Theater is Still there, no longer a movie theater.
Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the west, Atlantic Avenue and Prospect Heights to the south, and Vanderbilt Avenue and Clinton Hill to the east. The Fort Greene Historic District is listed on the New York State Registry and on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a New York City designated historic district.
The neighborhood is named after an American Revolutionary War era fort that was built in 1776 under the supervision of General Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island.[4] General Greene aided General George Washington during the Battle of Long Island in 1776. Fort Greene Park, originally called "Washington Park" is Brooklyn's first. In 1864, Fort Greene Park was redesigned by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux; the park notably includes the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument and crypt, which honors some 11,500 patriots who died aboard British prison ships during the American Revolution.
Fort Greene contains many examples of mid-19th century Italianate and Eastlake architecture, most of which is well preserved. It is known for its many tree-lined streets and elegant low-rise housing. Fort Greene is also home to the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, which, for over 80 years, was the tallest building in Brooklyn.[5] The neighborhood is close to the Atlantic Terminal station of the Long Island Rail Road and has access to many New York City Subway services.
On DeKalb Avenue, looking SE toward Fort Greene Park:
Russ Jackson sent this pre-WWII photo that was in Bill Madden's collection at 39th styreet near 2nd Avenue. The South Brooklyn thread at Trains has a an SB freight at this location, also pre-WWII and from Russ. This streetcar is probably on the Church Avenue Line.
further corrections by fellow ERA members:
And the second is actually on Nostrand Avenue, just north of a the single-switch connection to the single-track Holy Cross Cemetary Shuttle line, the car will rubn through a crossover and head to the carhouse.
Eric Oszustowicz indicates the 1st photo is at Franklin (with the tracks, and one block south of Crown Street.
8329 on the Lorimer Line, just north of Prospect Park and further north in Williamsburg:
One more:
Furnished by Henry: Is this a newly painteed Nortins Point car on its transfer move on Coney Island's Surf Avenue or is it at some other locatin?
The Nortons Point Line crossing the street one-block-west of Stillwell Avevenue on a bridge or elevated structure, as seen from across Surf Avenue, Coney Island. The tracks on Surf Avenue remained after the regular Sea Gate line went bus, as the only track connection between the Nortons Point Line and the rest of the streetcar system. Previous posts show the Nortons Point Line and a Nortons Point car on Surf Avenue.
More, the Hamilton Avenue Loop. downtown Brooklyn, with the not-quite completed ventilation building for the Brooklyn - Battery Tunnel, but which line? And a view from Hwry Raudenbush of the site today. The crowd is boarding a Flatbush Avenue car in a tyical scene. For the other two pictures, I'm waiting for information. 73-74 yesrs is a long time.
The Flatbush Avenue line was the heaviest Brooklyn line yet it never got PCCs in regular servicde and never cossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhatan at Park Row. It did intersect many subway lines, BMT, IRT, and IND, and I suspect most commuter users paid the double five-cent fare to connect to a subway line for transportation to work-place. In my memory, and probably from the 1931(?) introduction of the 6000s and 6100s (latter with leather-covered seats), until cnversion to bus, it always ran wirh rhese single-end :eter Witts with turnstyle at the entrance, exact-fare encouraged but not demanded.
Interesting how cmaritively undeveloped the downtown Brooklyn Tillary-Street Loop area was in 1947. The Manhattan Bridge is in the background.
Typical Flatbush Avenue scened, a cmmercial street its length:
Nstrand Avenue was another heavy line, feedigf some transfer passengers to rhe Flatbush Avenuem. more paying the extra fare for the IRT's Nostrand AVenue line, and a minority riding the line over the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan, reaced by the tracks also used by the Broadway and the Utica Avenue line under the Broadway (Brooklyn) Elevated (now J and Z).
Back to Ocean Avenue
Jay Street and Myrtle Avenuue
Another Graham line winter photo, here (I guess) at L. I. City:>
Two Graham Line photographs from Winter 1947-1948:
The Nortons Point line, shown in previous postings on this thread, had a direct double-track connection at the Srillwell Avenue elevated terminal to the two Culver Line tracks used by the "F" today. That connection was maintained for the weed-spray train and possibly other work equipment. But its connection to the Brooklyn streetcar system was via the Surf Avenue tracks of the Sea Gate line that was converted to bus in 1947, although Nortons Point continued for another four years.
Here is a Nortons Point car on a shop move on Surf Avenue, Coney Island in 1948:
Also from Henry, a view around 1946. No Third Avenue conduit cars, long gone, and space there devoted to automobiles. Plenty of double-end 8000 Peterr Witts in service.
Further from Henry:
From Henry Raudenbush:
Fan-trip photo-stop in Brooklyn's Williamsburg area (bridge tower in backround) with 8532 in the post-WWII scheme of green-and-silver, and 8525, behind, in traditional Burundy-and-cream.
The Long Island City Loop with Graham Avenue 8372 double-ender followed by a 6000 or 6200 single-ender on the Crosstown Line, 1947.
The Jan. 31 and Feb. 2 postings concerned the all PRW Nortons-Point Line, and here is the elevated terminal, now missimg, but prior to 1950 attached to the south end of the existing elevated 8-track terminal for the D, F, N, and Q lines, with occasional visits by the B.
Brooklyn's streetcar riders seemed divided into those who waited on the curb and those who came close to the tracks. Grand Avenue line(?), car 8217, 1947:
A fan trip of this type of car and at this location of Metropolitan and Jamaica Avenues in Queens had photos posted earlier, but here is a regular car.
The Holy Cross Cemetary Line was a half-mile, single-track, single-car operation, connected by one switch to the northbound track of he busy Nostrand Avenue Line.
Westinghouse control designators have an F in them if field control equipped. Common types used in interurban and rapid transit equipment include
HLF - Hand acceleration, Line power, Field Control
ABF - Automatic acceleration, Battery power, Field control
All steel North Shore Line equipment had HLF. Chicago's L had lots of variations, including one type (ABLFM) specifically designed to work with GE M- or PC- type control. Operation depended on MU controller.
GE PC-5 (Pneumatic Cam) controls used in quite a few streetcars have field control built in but not always connected, either actuated by a separate lever on the operator's controller, or by a release lever permitting the controller to go to the field control notch. PC-10 types used in heavier equipment get extra notches instead.
First, field shunting is only applicable to commutator motors, AC as well as DC, but not applicable to either AC synchrnous induction motors or AC non-synchronoys hysterises induction motors. All field current in these motors is under computer control. (Except many cases of synchronous motors with fixed speed and load for which such control is not necessary.)
As you already know, a DC generator is a motor in reverse, with the same basic parts. With a field current applied, the rotating armature, with its own coils. provides useful power (current in amps and volts) at the brush terminals.
When a comutator motor is at rest, and current is applied, the current in amps is determined by the volts applied divided by the total resistance of the motor (Ohms Law), usually the armature windings in series with the field windings. But as the motor begins to revolve, it generates its own voltage, called back-electro-motive force, back EMF, and this reduces the amount of current in amps that the motor receives.
Transition takes motors or groups of motors that were connected in series and connects them in parallel, thus doubling the applied voltage. Field shunting, field-weakening, reduces the back-EMF. Most DC-motored rail equipment use both, and nearly all use transition.
The perhaps more familiar term in American practice was 'field weakening'
It may seem paradoxical that reducing the magnetic field in the stator would let the motors 'propel the car faster'. In fact more "electricity" is being used in the motor, but it takes the form of more current going through the 'other half' of the magnetic interaction, the electromagnetic coil windings on the motor armature.
In field shunting, a section of the motor's field is shorted out, reducing the strength of the field. By weakening the field, the BEMF (Back Electro Motive Force) is reduced, allowing the motor to run faster than with a full field. Most if not all of the cars with field control/field shunting have some kind of MU control, even if they never operated as multiple units.
What was "field-shunting" that was mentioned above? I thought I was a streetcar fan, but I have never heard of that term.
Grand Avenue was the street the Lexington Avenue Elevated used between Myrtle and Lexington Avenues. It also, like Myrtle and DeKalb Avenues, had a streetcar line. Brooklyn's Lexington Avenue did not.
First, the posting was in error and has been corrected. The car was 8468 and not 8188. Field-shunt cars, the 8100-series, were not generally used on DeKalb Avenue. They were used mainly on Ocean Avenue, and shown on earlier postings on this thread, and on Utica Avenue, where use of additional top speed, I'd estimate about 42 mph, was possdible. I'd estimate the top speed, level track, of a regular 8000 to be about 35 mph.
The previous photo was the downtown loop, but here is the main boarding location:
daveklepperSide-view of field-shunt-equipped 8188
My introduction to the joys of field shunting involved the account of the Electroliner testing. In the version I heard, the train handily ran 108mph (on 28" wheels!) and at the end of that run a torch was called for and the coils summarily cut off...
The DaKalb Av. Line had two northern terminals, two branches, and we will look at another view of the termional shown above, then briefly at the other terminal, then some views on a trip downtown, inbcluding passing under the DeKalb Avenue Station of the Lexington Avenue Elevated ib its short connection from Myrtle Av. to Lexington Av.
Side-view of 8468 at change ends time at end of DeKalb Avenue line:
Brooklyn's 8th Av. streetcar line was relarively loght and short, with its own tracks on 8th Avenue frm 39th to 62nd Street, location of the photograph, and where there was a doiuble-track connection to the Bay Ridge streetcar line and a free transfer t that line to reach Coney Island. Or ne could use an extra nickle and use the Sea Beach Line, now the "N," fr C. I. or downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. At 39th Street, the line ran east from 8th Avenue, tracks shared with the longere-lasting and much heavier Church Av. line to Fort Hamilton Av., passing the 9th Avenue station, where most passengers would use West End subway trains (now "D") ir Culver elevated trains to reach downten Broklyn and Manhattan.
Prev ious: Two street crossings were exce[tions to grade crossings on the Niortons Point Line. They were Stillwell Avenue, adjacent to the eight-track rapid trnasit terminal, and the street one vblock west, where the line was on an elevated structure. The track connection tw the two lower-level tracks at Stillwell Avenue south end was retained for many years to permit the weed-control train to enter line. Connection to the rest of the streetcar system was via the Surf Avenue - Sea Gate line, with the tracks for the connection, with some rail dating from horsecar days were retained for five years after that line went bus. Nortons Point was the last line to regularly use non-PCC equipment ihn Brooklyn, and it should have been kept, in my opinion.
on a sxomewhat diffwerent note, previous posting theGraham Line's single-end Peter Witt 6015 duid not show the whole in even lighting, so:
I believe the abandonment of the Nortons Point line was a mistake. It was all PRW. no street runnong, usual gade -cossings, went up an incline for direct interchange to the rapid-transit trains at Coney Island - Stillwell Avenue. Originally, in the steam days, a westward extension of the Culver Line beyond Coney Island, and the first electric opeation was with open-platform elevated cars with trolley-poles and steps.
Interior of an 8000=series:
At the 95th Street and Fifth Avenue sourthwest corner of Brooklyn, near Fort Hamilton Park. two fan-trip cars, same as the double-end Peter Witts normally used. Nearer car is 8120.
Another at Williamsburg Bridge Plaza:
Vanderbuit and Flushing Avenues, with a double-end 8388 on the Graham line.
Back to a Peter Witt built as one and on a fan-trip, shown earlier on this thresd. The operator is rewiring after the pole ledt the wire. The strenge thing at the top of the picture is tha backside of a large advertizing sign:
The 5000 were the firtst Brooklyn lightweight steel cars and were built as pure center-door two-man cars, like the West Penn interurban cars. But while West Penn converted theirs to one-man with a single door at the front-right, Leading to no real structural change, the Brooklyn and Queens Transit part of the BMT sliced the corners off, moving end posts to the right of what were the center windows, to permit installing a double door, effecting a Peter-Witt door arrangement. Some did operate through WWII, but the entire group was scrapped while older concvertable end-door deck-roof mostly wood cars were still in use. I last saw one on West End. the streetcar mostly under the current "D" line in Brooklyn structure, in 1947, the first photo. I wondered why the cars were removed from sevice early. The answer came performing electronic darkroom work to make the 73-year-old deteriorated photos presentable. Put a sraight-edge, ruler, book, or whatnot agaist the near-to-side views, and you will uncover that the cars developed a noticeable sag, despite the "Fishbelly" side construction, a aign of structural weakness.
The Williamsburg Bridge Plaza, at the Brooklyn end of the Bridge, also saw multiple lines, half their inbound terminal, and half crossing the Bridge to Manhattan, plus the Bridge local:
I believe 8111 went to the museum about two weeks after I took the photograph. It has not been given a thorough restoration yet, was kept operable, but is still awaiting completion of post=Sandy repairs before it can operste again.
The busiest Brooklyn intersection for streetcars before June 1940 Unidixarion, and beginning of bus replacement was proably Flatbush Avemie and Fulton Street. After June 1940 that honor probably went to Flatbush Avenue and Livingston Street, the photo below. I believe 8208 was a DeKalb Avenue car crossing the intersection on Livingston Street. On the right in the distance is a Seveth Avenue PCC. which will continue straight on Flatbush for about a mile before turning straight soiuth on 7th Avenue. The trolleybus is either St. Johns Avenue or Bergin Street, converted from streetcar a few months before the photo:
And at the other end of the Williamsburg Bridge:
Termnal in use until late 1947 or early 1948. 8302! The decal number supplied by Gilbert American Flyer for their HO New Haven passenger cars! No bus replacement for the briege streetcars, patrons forced to use the subway trains.
In Manhattan, there were two underground streetcar terminals, one at 2nd Avenue, 59th - 60th Streets, used until 1957 for Queensboro Bridge cars, and one at Essex and Delancy Streets, which you can still see today, unused, from the right windows of an M or J or Z train, leaving Essex and about to cross the Willisamsburg Bridge.
Another view of a tunstyle-equipped Brooklyn single-end, probably at Tillary Street, with its three track layout.
Yes, I did reinfosce the ovehead, and probably should not have done so.
As I get more skill in using Microsoft Paint and Photo Editor, some negatives that I thought were beyond repair have been brought to usefulness. So here is one of Brooklyn's only single-track line, the Holy Cross Cemetary Shuttle, which ran about 1/3-of-a-mile east from Nostrand Avenue, where it had its only track connection with the system.
Although Brooklyn had only one single-track line, the Third Avenue System had more. Indeed a majority of Yonkers lines were single-track or had single-track sections, the only exceptions being the 2, its Gettys Sq. short-turn, the 3. the 4, and the Yonkers - Mt. Veron 7. The 1, 5, 6, 8, and 8 were partially or completely single-track. All included passing sidings except 9, which ran only one car. Nachod trolley contactor signals were used. In addition, Third Avenue had The Bronx's Sedgewick Avenue line, also after Deoression cut-backs, a single-car line.
daveklepper I believe 8111 was taken directly from service around 1950, when the Ocean Avenue line was converted to bus, along with several others, giving the system a surplus of 8000s available for service. A few coninued to be used until the 1954 end of Brooklyn streetcar service for special moves when double-end cars were needed. A farewell fantrip was organized, with two field-tap 8100's, and I rode 8110 and photographed the seond car.
I believe 8111 was taken directly from service around 1950, when the Ocean Avenue line was converted to bus, along with several others, giving the system a surplus of 8000s available for service. A few coninued to be used until the 1954 end of Brooklyn streetcar service for special moves when double-end cars were needed.
A farewell fantrip was organized, with two field-tap 8100's, and I rode 8110 and photographed the seond car.
I love these original photos! Thanks for sharing them, Dave. : ) It is interesting to see that the light bulb inside the headlight was (correctly) installed upside down. The interior lighting probably brighter than the headlight in the dark, but I can understand that a headlight for the streetcar was a must due to the regulation, and this type of headlight was similar to those used on British trams, designed to be seen by people and driver on the road rather than to illuminate the way ahead.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Belated answer to the question on 8111. Removed from service and moved to the Branford Electric Railway, now the Shore Line Trolley Museum, within a year after my photo on Ocean Avenue.
So far, this thread has lacked a good photo of one of the 200 single-end Peter Witt Brooklyn streetcars, 6000-6099 and 6200-6299. All had turnstyles at the front end, as did the PCCs oriiginally. (Also double-end 8501-8575 made single-end for normal operation, and 4100-4199, end-door convertables made single-end and one-man). Here is a blind-side view of one on the Graham Avenue line which reached into Queens at L. I. City:
And here is another 8000:
The other thing about Peter Witt is that he is the reputed inventor of the paper clip...
Mike also supplied this link to an advertisement for the car type:
From Mike:
And there were systems that never owned non-PCC Peter Witts but did use Peter-Witt PCCs: Johnstown, San Francisco, Los Angeles Ry., Boston, Washington-DC, Cincinatti, Montreal, Nwark, NJ.
And there were PCCs that were not Peter Witts, San Fancisco (PCCs both kinds, today too!), Dallas, Illinois Terminal. (Red Arrows were not PCCs).
Most cities with Peter-Witt PCCs did use Peter Witts before PCCs: Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, Shaker Heights, Pacific Electric, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Baltimore, St. Louis. (PE's double-ended, ditto the PWs, the "Hollywoods")
Unsure of Kansas City.
Peter Witt cars predate the PCC. Several smaller operations, like Gary Railways, had Peter Witts for their heavier routes but never purchased PCC's.
Our mutual friend notes:
I'm fascinated that Mr. Witt was the youngest of 11 siblings. If his parents had fewer children, would there be PCC cars? which seem to me to be a progression of his idea.
Dave: I would also ask, what about nearly all local transit buses?
Some views of the 6000's, single-end, 1929 and 1930, Brill, Brooklyn cars
Taken by the late Frank Pfeuler:
Brooklyn Bridge Plaza, Brooklyn side:
Above again, looks like it is operating on the Putnam line, a WWII restoration line converted to bus earlier in 1941 that was largely still intact. And the line was etended over the BB to Park Row Manhatta. The car is justemergffing from the Brooklyn Bridge. The double-end Peter Witt on the right might be a Myrtle Avenue car headed for Wyckoff Avenue.
Below at Grand Army Plaza, intersection of Eastern Parlway and Flatbush Avenue, the car is on the heavy Flatbush Avenue line.
The Shore Line Trolley Museum (please turn down the volume first)
In the video, the motor sound exactly like the Trolley (We call them Tram) in my city before their refurbishment, when I was a little kid, riding the tram from point A to point B then go home from point B was one of our family activities, sometimes we did it after a dinner, sometimes its was only me and my father.
8111 looks a bit worn and threadbare. Glad it made it to preservation. How much longer was it in regular service after this picture was taken?
Car 8111 is at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Here it is in regular service 70 years ago photographed when I was 16-1/2 at the southern end, Neptune Avenue, of the Ocean Avenue line,
As promised, I did correct the white holes in the two Ocean Avenue pictues and also corrected the effects of the sprocket holes on developmen, and reposted. The mutli car photo that follows is believed to be on Flushing Avenue in Queens where the line to La=Guardia Airport (Grand Street?) turns off he Flushing - Ridgewood line. The second is adjaent to Mount Richmond Cemetary, near the Brooklyln - Queens border, but I think in Queens.
As I'm sure is the case for many of us, these pics make me wax nostalgic for an era I never knew. They just go to show that higher technology doesn't necessarily mean life is more civilized. Or at the very least, more "civil".
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
canned some negatives that were never printed, apparently of a Brooklyn fan-trip around 1949 WE used 8525, a double-end car that had been converted for usual single-end operation while keeping its double-end capabilities, with a turnstile at the new single end, around 1929. About 40 such 8000's were converted, as an experiment before the single-end 6000's were ordered in 1930. After the 6000's replaced them on the heavy Flatbush Avenue line, they spent the rest of their careers on the Myrtle Avenue line, which ran under the Myrtle Avenue elevated, and is a bus line today. I think the fantrip was run on the day of that lines last day of operation, or the day before, with these cars being scrapped afterward.
The last years of operation in Brooklyn had just three PCC lines operating, Church, Coney Island Avenue, and McDonald Avenue. But ten or 15 double-end 8000's were kept to the end so emergency service could be provided using trailing crossovers for cutback operation when part of one or the other of the liens was blocked.
The 6000's on xhop truks at DeKalb shopa probably had been cannibalized for their trucks and motors to keep double-end 8000's running/
Our fantrip car on its home territory under the Mrtle Avenue elevated.
Below at the end of the Metropolitan Avenue line at Jamaica Avenue. Jamaica Avenue also had a streetcar line, which I rode on its last evening, 1948, but with out pictures.
Also, same location:
I think this location is on Ocaan Parkway, normally home to the 8100's, 8000's with field-tap connecdtions added to their motors for higher speed, with 8111 at Branford - Shore Line Trolley Musuem
And here is 8112, sister to our 8111, definitely on Ocean Avenue
I apologize for the whiite spots. Now that I see them I'll be able to repair these photos and replace these submittals with the repaired ones.
The ramp to the upper level at DeKalb shops:
I think this location is near East New York, where the Jamaica Aenue "J" crosses over the Fresh Pond Junction - Jamaica LIRR line, (now freight-only?).
And below is on Stillwell Avene, Coney Island, adjacent to the rapid-transit Stillwell Avenue Coney Island Station. The West End and Bey Ridge streetcar lines ran to this point.
Some more pictures of Brooklyn 8000-series double-end Peter Witts.
On the freight-only RoW between Ditmass and 9th Avenue under the now-absent Culver Shuttle elevated structure:
Returning to MacDonald Avenue at Ditmass:
Flatbush and Lorimer (I think?)
On the Grand Street line heading to ward LaGuardia Airport passing a fan-trip PCC, the last in the old "Packiderm Grey" and scarlet color scheme on the bridge between Brooklyn and Queens.
On Jamaica Avenue at Williamsburg Bridge Plaza after the 1947 blizzerd:
Very very nice Penny. That old photo at Luna Park with the kid and the 4-4-0 is terrific. What a beautiful locomotive.
The Diesels in the photos are ugly and about as exiting as suet pudding.
I can see where you get some of your inspirations.
Thank you for all this.
I found another pic of the streetcar station:
My mom is one of those "wasted youths" who would hop the streetcar and ride out to the beach to ride the coasters whenever she had a bit of money in her pocket.
Yes, the arch is still there:
It's on the list of historic places. A small section of the old lake pier remains and there's the old Racing Derby (Cedar Downs) at Cedar Point. But the only other big piece that survives is the Euclid Beach Carousel which has been restored and you can ride it at the Western Reseve Historical Society Museum in University Circle.
The Euclid Beach concrete arch was still in place a few years ago. The site is now a "manufactured housing" park.
Just for fun, and I hope you'll forgive this excursion, here's a short video of the amusement park in my living room.
Since you brought up Coney Island, here are a couple of pics of cars in Euclid Beach Park service.
Just about dead center in this photo you can just make out the streetcar station and cars in winter storage on the track out front:
Here's a closer view:
PCC's in Euclid Beach service:
The park had the Sleepy Hollow RR:
Later it was dieselized.
Cleveland's Luna Park had this great little loco:
Bob Hope used to sneak into Luna Park when he was a kid.
Car with advertisement (front left of car) for "Milk Men's Day" at Luna Park.
Western,Cottage Grove and 63rd had some one man operation with PCCs. CTA kept changing from part-time one man service to weekend bus replacement before total bus replacement (and rapid transit conversion of PCC cars) won out. Wentworth Avenue, the last line, finished with two-man cars. Chicago's postwar PCCs were all built as two-man, with hand controls instead of foot pedals. The prewar cars with the more "Peter Witt" door arrangement were easier to set up for one man service.
Even after the political battles for one-man service were won, Chicago maintained a very large number of two-man lines. Most if not all of the one-man lines were discontinued before the last of the conventional car equipped two-man lines.
On CSL and for a while on CTA, the Sedans and PCC's were two-man cars, although near the end, some PCC's were converted for one-man operation.
Thanks. Rode cars in the 6100 series in Baltimoire in 1947, age 15, and hope to find and scan the photos some day. On the scenic Mt. Washington line, they were used interchageably with the PCCs and were among the best non-PCC cars Irode, somewhat peppier and smoother than the fairly good Brooklyn 6000s (single-end) and 8000s.
But in the immediate PostWWII period, Peterv Witts and PCCs were not much more than a drop in the bucket compared to the vast fleet of Brill semi-convertables. PCCS and Peter Witts were all one-man. But there were some two-man Semis, red and cream, while all one-man cars were yellow-orange and cream.
And three-car mu trains of semis ran on Sparrows Point. Much later, single PCCS were used until abandonment.
Baltimore Transit 6144 (same series as 6119) is up for possible use as a fleet car at Seashore Trolley Museum. It runs OK, but hasn't been serviced in a long time. Body in reasonably good shape. Seats, floors and paint, along with a thorough wiring check are needed. Looking for about $500 for 2018 work in addition to what's on hand. Car has been regauged to standard from Baltimore's 5' 4.5" cable car gauge.
Baltimore Transit Co.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Some more views of the double-end 8000s in the southern part of Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island
That one was taken at Linndale, which was at the other end of my street, once upon a time. Before I was born!
Penny, a terrific photo. Is that at Colingwood?
Any chance to promote the home town!
Terrific information Penny....thanks so much.
The entrances to the subway were at West 29th, West 25th and West 9th.
Maybe it was less than a mile, but many more miles were proposed but never built.
A second deck was added also to the Lorain-Carnegie bridge for streetcar use:
Had it been completed, it would have had just about the most impressive entrances you'd ever see for a subway:
But in the end only the Detroit Superior bridge was used:
It's sad what we give up.
There are other tunnels in Cleveland that had nothing to do with railroads.
This one I've seen first hand. But it was back in the 80's and I didn't have a camera along. So these are not my photos:
Of course on the heavy rail side of things, there were (and still are) the many underground tracks of the Cleveland Union Terminal:
Add to the list of
OXYMORONS
- jumbo shrimp ...
-military intelligence ...
- altogether separate ...
HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE SUBWAY
Buffalo and Erie (Erie PA city system) had Peter Witts they sold to Gary (Indiana) Railways, which converted them to one man cars with no center exit and a treadle rear exit. Chicago converted several "sedans" to one man cars in the 1950s and then retired them without ever using them again.
Cities that had Peter Witts but never PCCs in revenue service include Louisville, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Youngstown (?)' Denver (narrow gauge).
Those trolley shots are a fascinating look at a lost world, aren't they?
My, what we've lost.
Anyway, this is for that patriotic trolley in photo 12 of Becky's post...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_rk9FNOfEo
Cleveland Transit P. W.'s
Our "subway" was the lower level of the Detroit-Superior high level bridge:
W 25th and Detroit subway entrance:
This one looks to be in the green and gray Raymond Leowy scheme:
Cleveland Transit System barn at Madison and W 117th:
Cleveland Railway Company barn:
...and Detroit Rd. yard:
CTS(?) Sandcar:
Windermere car barn:
You don't see this much these days:
This either!
Ye REAAALLLYYY olden days:
Euclid Beach Park Loop:
Cleveland hosted the A.E.R.A. conventions in 27, 28 & 29.
Last run Jan 24, 1954:
But in 1927:
...it was the metropolis that inspired!
The above pics came from "The Cleveland Memory Project", a fantastic online archive at Cleveland State University: http://www.clevelandmemory.org/
Cleveland had several series, including an articulated variant. Not surprising since Peter Witt was a Cleveland Transit Commissioner. His non-transit claim to fame was inventing the paper clip. Cleveland's 1913 center-entrance cars were sort of a test run for the Peter Witt traffic flow concept, and the relatively poor performance of their design led to moving the entrance to the front for later models. Center-entrance trailers operated regularly in trains with Peter Witt motors.
Toronto, Baltimore, Rochester and Chicago ("Sedans") also had non-PCC Peter Witts.
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