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.
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...
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:
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.
What was "field-shunting" that was mentioned above? I thought I was a streetcar fan, but I have never heard of that term.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
The Long Island City Loop with Graham Avenue 8372 double-ender followed by a 6000 or 6200 single-ender on the Crosstown Line, 1947.
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.
From Henry Raudenbush:
Further from Henry:
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.
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:
Two Graham Line photographs from Winter 1947-1948:
Another Graham line winter photo, here (I guess) at L. I. City:>
Back to Ocean Avenue
Jay Street and Myrtle Avenuue
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).
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 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.
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?
One more:
8329 on the Lorimer Line, just north of Prospect Park and further north in Williamsburg:
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