Orange Empire Railway Museum has more than one PCC car. Four Los Angeles Railway 42" gauge cars. One San Diego car now being restored. They also my have a San Francisco Car. A Toronto car is on some private property next to the museum. The Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista CA has at least two cars from San Francisco.
I think your memory is correct about the IRT cars, and there was not much difference if any with the IND R-1-R-9 ccars. The conductor would be in the middle of a ten-car train, and at South Ferry only half the train would have open doors. But there were differences with the Gibbs-car 7th Avenue locals, which ran no more than six cars. The conductor would be between the first and second car or between the fifth and sixth. Because one car on the train did was not converted to mu door control and still had a lever to open the doors manually. So it was at one end of the train or the other! The local platforns on the Broadway-7th Avenue line were not extended from 5-1/2 cars to ten cars until after WWII. (along with closing 18th and 91st Street Stations) The very front doors on IRT trains did not open because the front vestibule was the motorman's location, even when bulkhead doors were replaced by a corner cab. The very rear doors did not open either. So a six car train could be accomodated at 270ft long platform. I do not remember if all doors on the 7th Avenue locals opened at South Ferry or if the end non-door-mu car remained closed.
daveklepper On both the CTA and on very crowded IRT Lexington Avenue Locals, the conductor often stayed at his position between stops only because of crowding, if the stops were close together. I remember observing this, but I can be confusing the two systems. On the IRT, this was in the subway, so rain and snow were not problems.
On both the CTA and on very crowded IRT Lexington Avenue Locals, the conductor often stayed at his position between stops only because of crowding, if the stops were close together. I remember observing this, but I can be confusing the two systems. On the IRT, this was in the subway, so rain and snow were not problems.
Dave: As I remember on the old NYC IRT type cars. The conductor riding between cars had a cylindrical mechanism attached to each end of the cars both sides about shoulder height.. Looked somewhat like a flashlight. Once the train stopped the conductor would operate some kind of switch on the bottom that would open the doors on that car and every other car towards that end of the train. Then he would operate the switch on the other car towards the other end of the train.
Once the doors were clear of passengers the conductor would slap the top of each cylinder and doors would close toward that end of train. That way it may have been for the short platforms at South Ferry ?
Can anyone elaborate or correct my memory ?
The buttons on the Conductor's right were for the door controls. I imagine he was only expected to pop out onto his footholds at station stops. The Logan Square line, where the cars had their initial service intermixed with wood cars, had a couple of stations with curved platforms. . .
Onllly possiblew when the trucks are near the ends of the cars, with little overhang. Otherwise, entering and leaving curves would be a big problem. Even then, most conductors in all these cities moved one foot or the other to have both on the same step, but continued with use of both cars' grabirons.
rcdrye The surprising thing wasn't the idea that conducters should ride outside in Chicago - far from it. Gate cars were still in service in Chicago for several years after 6001-6120 were delivered. What was amazing was the idea that the conductor would ride between the cars with just one foothold and one grab iron on each car of the married pair. http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery/images/6000/cta6005-06cond.jpg
The surprising thing wasn't the idea that conducters should ride outside in Chicago - far from it. Gate cars were still in service in Chicago for several years after 6001-6120 were delivered. What was amazing was the idea that the conductor would ride between the cars with just one foothold and one grab iron on each car of the married pair.
http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gallery/images/6000/cta6005-06cond.jpg
Wonder if the got 'hazardous duty' pay for working 'outside'?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I saw that back in 1975 when My dad, brother and I visited Boston and rode a good bit of the rail transit there. I can't recall seeing that on the Red or Blue lines but I definitely saw it on the Orange lines. Having a crew member working like that seems so insane.
In the dreadful winter January 1979, passengers rode between cars on the L. I witnessed this several times on the Ravenswood line, since because of the snow, the buses were largely not operating and few were driving, the L lines were horribly overcrowded.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
IND and IRT cars had conductors outside until the equipment after WWII. Chicago winters ARE more severe than Boston's having lived several years in both, because of the very strong winter wind off Lake Michigan, much stronger than the wind off the the Atlantic Ocean in Boston. Cape Cod acts as a wind breaker.. Chicago, even though south of the Twin Cities, has a more severe winter. Indeed, I would say it is more severe than Montreal. Parts of Long Island have more severe winters than Boston.
Forgive my dim memory, but I thought I saw a Boston orange line conductor operating door controls from outside between the cars when I visited around 1978. Can anybody confirm or deny it? Of course nobody better try to claim Chicago winters are worse than Boston winters.
Patrick Boylan
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schlimm I was under the (mis)impression that the trade-ins also used some of the body of the PCCs (sides).
The bodies were built new, with windows, cranks, light fixtures, seats re-used. The windows and crank assemblies on the Pullman and St. Louis streetcar PCCs were slightly different, requiring some body modifications as the project was underway. In the run-up to the final design, Pullman tried re-using a St. Louis-built car's body with new ends and bolsters, but the body construction was too light for rapid transit service. St. Louis Car made the proposal to build new bodies and reuse parts. StLCC's offer included buying back the streetcars, which is why the majority of them were scrapped in St. Louis.
Hard as it is to believe, the first 120 cars were built with the Conductor's position outside the cars, with one foothold on each car of the married pair. Needless to say this arrangement didn't last long, and may not even have made it into passenger-carrying service.
CSSHEGEWISCH CTA's rapid transit PCC's were not rebuilds but trade-ins and the first batch, 6001-6200 were built prior to the beginning of the trade-ins, which covered 6201-6720 and 1-50. CTA would sell PCC streetcars to St. Louis Car Co., who scrapped the cars and salvaged various re-usable parts, primarily trucks and various interior fittings, to be used in the construction of new PCC rapid transit cars.
CTA's rapid transit PCC's were not rebuilds but trade-ins and the first batch, 6001-6200 were built prior to the beginning of the trade-ins, which covered 6201-6720 and 1-50. CTA would sell PCC streetcars to St. Louis Car Co., who scrapped the cars and salvaged various re-usable parts, primarily trucks and various interior fittings, to be used in the construction of new PCC rapid transit cars.
CRT/CTA's 5001-5004 articulateds also had PCC control and could train with the 6000 series. Cars 6127-6128, 6129-6130 and 1-4 had various non-PCC control systems but could train with cars with PCC control. Easiest way to distinguish the built-new from the trade-ins were the flat instead of curved doors on 6001-6200, which were known as "Flat Door Sixes"
YOu are correct. Boston is the only city with continuous PCC service since 1941. However, the lines served changed several times, and the original, Park Street - Watertown, doesn't exist. SF and Philly had a gap in regular service, but not in servicable cars. Toronto cannot be counted as regular service.
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum operates a PCC car in TCRT colors at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis along with TCRT car 1300, and Standard TCRT car and 299 a Duluth Standard car.
S. F. MUNICIPAL RAILWAY #1030 is at he Fox Valley Trolley Museum, along with more CTA conversions.
http://www.foxtrolley.org/Default.aspx?pageId=1146778
Chicago Transit Authority 4391 is at the Illinois Railway Museum.
http://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?estreet=Chicago+Transit+Authority=4391
Also Cleveland Transit System 4223.
And CTA converted PCC's 22, 30, 41, 50, and 6125-26, 6461-62, 6455-56.
I quibble about Philly and San Francisco, both of which I believe had a few year gap in their PCC service.
Boston, or rather its Mattapan and Asmont suburbs, is the only operation that I'm pretty sure is still PCC.
CTA ran its last PCC's on December 4, 1992 on the Evanston Express.
Possibly Newark City Subway. But I believe there are many that never were retired in the likes of Philadelphia and San Francisco...even South America.
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While a bit off topic, does anyone know where PCC's last ran in regular revenue service? Not the current "revival" or nostalgia runs they make now.
Modeling the Cleveland and Pittsburgh during the PennCentral era starting on the Cleveland lakefront and ending in Mingo junction
The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Washington, PA (Arden), has seven "true" PCCs - three operational, four on display only.
Of the seven, one was Pullman Standard built for Shaker Heights Rapid Transit (Cleveland, OH), four are St. Louis products for Pittsburgh Railways Co. (PRCo), while two more St. Louis cars were made for Philadelphia Transportation Co. (one of them later repainted in SEPTA's orange-and-blue scheme).
One of the PRCo units was rebuilt by Port Authority of Allegheny County Transit (PAT) in 1988 as #4004. It was PAT's last revenue service PCC. Another PRCo car, #1711, was one of several specially fitted to run in interurban service between Pittsburgh and Charleroi or Washington, PA. It sports the roof mounted "cyclops eye" headlight seen on on some of today's LRVs.
The museum actually has nine PCCs in all if you count St. Louis-built Philadelphia Suburban (PS) #14 (operational) and #24 (display only) for PS's renamed Red Arrow Division, later part of SEPTA. These two 1949 units are considered by many as the last US interurban cars ever made. They sport PCC bodies mounted on high-speed running gear.
Operational or not, PTM gives all these cars due TLC. The entire collection roster and histories are here: http://pa-trolley.org/collection/
The Philly PCC at Glen Echo was removed in 2012:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/streetcar-removed-from-glen-echo-park/2012/04/30/gIQADoPjsT_story.html
Others that I know of:Baltimore Streetcar Museum has on site original Baltimore Transit PCC 7407, Philadelphia PCC 2168, former San Diego/El Paso PCC 503/1503 (originally intended to be restored as Baltimore "7303," but now doubtful), and NJ Transit Newark Subway PCC 26, as well as a heavily-rebuily ex-Philly "line car" PCC.
Rockhill Trolley Museum has SEPTA 2743 and Newark car 6.
Three ex-Philly/SEPTA PCCs were sold off by the Balto. Streetcar Museum to a group in Lancaster, Pa. in 2008; whereabouts unknown. That group supposedly also had a fourth that came via Brooklyn, NY, but was scrapped in an ownership/storage/property dispute.
As I recall, National Capital Trolley Museum has three PCCs of various heritages.
Just go to Frank Hicks' excellent database at the BERA website, mentioned above.
I can understand why Glen Echo park would want a PCC on display. It was well served by the scenic,, mostly PRW, Cabin John, I think route 20, all PCC, which started at Union Station, went through a tunnel near the Capitol Building, passed the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, swiched from conduit to overhead trolley wire at the beginning of PRW west of Georgetown, and then ran throgh a park-like environgment, crossing occaasional streams, to a stop at Glen Echo, then continiued to a loop at Cabin John, which seemed very rural indeed. I understand the bus replacement took 45 miinutes longer to get downtown during rush hours, and people who had depended on the line found they had to abandon public transit and buy cars. My first ride on the line was with John Stern and Bill (Giggles) Watson, on a privately taken railfan Batlimore and Washington weekend, 1947, age 15-1/2. They shared a DC hotel room and I stayed with my Aunt Sue in her Massachusetts Avenue apartment. We rode PRR both ways NY-DC. I rode the line again and again on many subsequent visits. My last ride was when I was in the Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1956. I was designated as convoy commander for a military vehicle trip to Bolling Air Base for an Armed Forces Day show (This was during the Eisenhower Administration, and nearly all USA Citizens showed respect for the military), and we were to demonstrate leaflet drops and long-range loudspeaker sound propagation. My two techies and I decided to visit Glen Echo on our free time, and I had our Jeep driven to a Capitol area parking lot, parking for free for a military vehicle, and ride the trolley, and my two friends and hard workers said they appreciated the chance to ride the trolley line as much as to enjoy the Glen Echo amuseuments, even though it was evening and very dark on the return trip. On a long trip the three of us took turns driving, but in Washington, since I was the officer, still a 2nd Louee, not yet made 1st., one of the others had to do the driving.
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