Detroit Department of Street Railways, 1947 - 1948

[daveklepper]

If you count double-enders, which you did include in the Pittsburgh total, then Brooklyn, which like Pittsburgh had bouth and double-enders, is second.  Single end:  6000-6099, 6200-6299, and double-end 8000-8575.  All Brooklyn "Peter Witts," like Pittsburgh's and most of Detroit's were one-man.  Brooklyn could be said to have the most if you add the 5000s (deck-roof) and 5200s (arch-roof), built as pure double-end, center-door two-man-cars, with some not scrapped before running with entrance doors cut into the front corner until the PCCs 1000-1099 were all on line.  Or you could say New York City was first by adding the 75 Broadway Third Avenue Transit Huffliners, 551-625, 551-600 aluminum, 601-625 steel with side corigations.

TATS Hufflineres:

typical of 552-600:

The first sample car, Brill instead of home-built, had center doors opposed, not staggered, visiting Gardner Avenue Mt. Vernon after speed test run on Yonkers Avenue:

555 showing off aluminium construction before standard paint:

Steel, on "K" after "B" bussed:

 

 

 

Brooklyn 5200 with coner door:

,

Back to Detroit and the River Rouge, Dearborn, streetcar terminal at the Ford Factory,served full-time by Baker and at shift-changes by Michigan-Gratiot and Fort-Kercival.

Baker was the last non-PCC line and never had PCCs before being bussed, after which all Ford factory service was bus, mustly the Wyoming Avenue bus.

[rcdrye]

daveklepper

1. Didn't Detroit have the very largest fleet of single-end Petder Witts in North America?

Detroit had more Peter Witts (781) than many cities had cars.  Cleveland held the number two spot with just over 500, depending on how the 5000 series articulateds get counted. Toronto was a distant number three with 350 motors, though Toronto did have 225 Petre Witt trailers.

Toronto 2890 will re-enter the operating fleet at Seashore Trolley Museum this year.

[daveklepper]

One more photo cured of chicken pox, measels, or poison ivy:

[Miningman]

Thanks for all this Dave. 

City after city losing their Streetcar systems. Quite the fad post war. Now quite the green fad at thousands of time the price and for only a short point to point distance. 

I wonder if there is a calculation, a number, perhaps even a constant that could be plugged in that indicated how many tons of pollutants into the atmosohere were added by tearing up all those Streetcar systems. Replaced by buses and autos, starting say late 40's, all through the 50's and into the early 60's. 

Or how many less tons if we had kept the streetcars running nationwide and across North America instead of buses and individual autos. 

[daveklepper]

Grand River line's yard

[daveklepper]

I'm asking for help on the Trains General Forum.  Thanks

 

[daveklepper]

Kasle Steel was bought out by Steel Technologies, STTX, in 2006.  Jones Iron and Metal has been in Kansas City since 1964, not sure when Dearborn closed or even if it is the same company.  Now deals primarily in structural steel.

 

The two streetcar linjes I used most often when they were running were Fourteen and Trumble.

 

Michigan Central switched both Kasle and Jones.  The local freight was powered by a 2-8-2 with the tender lettered Michigan Central most of the time.   At least one time, an ex-Boston -and-Albany Berkshire showed up.

[daveklepper]

 

v

The above photo is on Wyoming Avenue looking south from a point south of Michigan Avenue.  Here, Wyoming Avenue is the boarder between Detroit, on the left, and Dearborn, on the right.  Westbound Michigan Avenue cars (marked "Through") looped here using the track to the left, while Ford Plant shift-change cars only (marked "Rouge") went south on the Wyoming Avenue tracks to the River Rouge Plant.  Thy Wyoming Avenue Car-house and yard also was here, also accessed  buy the loop track.

 

My brother-in-law (Former Reform Rabbi, Navy Chaplain and then Wayne State U. Philosophy Prof.) Leonard Kasle had succeeded his Dad as Pres. of Kasle Steel, who supplied special steel products to the large automakers.  This was located a few blocks south on the Dearborn sideof the street.  Next door was his brother-in-l;aw's frim, Ben Jones' Jones Iron and Metal, mostly a scrap-yard, where most Detrroit Peter Witts were scapped.

 

Quesrtions for those more familiar with Detroit than me:  1.  Didn't Detroit have the very largest fleet of single-end Petder Witts in North America?  2.  After the second and larger group of PCCs arrived, some displaced the older (1948) PCCs on Woodward, with its through-routing with Jefferson to the east,  and some PCCs of both kinds displaced the Peter Witts on Michigan and Gratiot, thorugh routed.  But I never saw a PCC on Wyoming Avenue.  Was Michigan Avenue shift-change serviceended art the time?

 

[daveklepper]

One more:   Rear of Woodward carhouse

 

[daveklepper]