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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Jetrock willy6: Those are the non-powered ones, right? I think Reader's Digest or someone like that gave away zillions of those--the green one is a Brill trolley and the other one is a San Francisco cable car. Bachmann does a powered version of the Brill, and I think there is even a powered cable car model out there, although the prototype runs on 3'6" gauge track instead of standard gauge. I'm not sure if there is a Desire St. anywhere but there was a Tennessee Williams play called "Streetcar named Desire" which is where the reference comes from. trolleyboy: The upper photo is of SN 62 which is at the Western Railway Museum. It's fun to ride, although I imagine taking it to work every day might get one sick of its rocking & rolling motion! [/quote] 1. If the green one is authentic, it's a New Orleans Public Service Inc. (NOPSI) car built in about 1923 by what was then the Perley Thomas car company. Today, that company is Thomas-Built Buses, and they build a huge number of school buses. Many of the NOPSI cars are still in service on the St. Charles line, which is broad gauge (5' 2-1/2", same as Pennsylvania Broad Gauge), several were retrucked for the Riverfront line (std gage), and the new Canal Street line uses a fleet of homebuilt replicas of the Perley Thomas NOPSI cars (more like charicatures) that are air-conditioned and ADA-compliant (St. Charles doesn't have to be--it's a historic monument and is exempt on historical grounds). BTW, once St. Charles gets out of downtown, it runs on a completely restored and reworked ROW in the median through the Garden District and by Tulane University out to the Carrollton Ave. shops. Beautiful ride. 2. The Desire Street line was also in New Orleans, and it is on the list of lines they'd like to put back in, for obvious tourist draw. The actual NOPSI car used in the 1950's movie is at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum outside Pittsburgh. 3. An operating, restored Birney single-trucker in actual non-museum revenue service (!) is on the M-line (McKinney Ave Transit Authority) in Dallas. If you like teeter totters, you'll love that little jewel! It's an ex-Dallas Railway & Terminal car, so it's right at home. Saw it a couple of times last week, in service with the Melbourne car (equipped for ADA). Also a nice ride down the street from the Arts District to the West Side Marketplace (an upscale mixed-use "new urbanism" development, not to be confused with Dallas's West End) with tons of good restaurants and nightlife on the route. [C):-)]
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