Yeah pretty sure that was the hosting club. Probably did meet Big B. Maybe he remembers the Grand Trunk guy. There was precious little available painted for GTW in those days so I had a lot of custom painted...passenger cars, freight cars, loco's. Probably 25-27 years ago. Good grief. What the heck happened with the time. Not fair. Can we get a Mulligan on that?
Took one of my daughters with me, she was maybe 8 or 9 at the time. She always wore her Chessie girls T shirts to the train shows and N-Trak meets. Even today she has a cat named Chessie. Another great memory- We stayed in a place that had a Murphy Bed, as the second bed in the room. I knew of them but never really saw a real one and she thought that was the coolest thing ever. Once in a while it still comes up in a conversation.
She loved crawling underneath and throwing all the accessory switches and seeing that everything worked. Had a lot of animation and operating signals. Also a pretty good sky hook when needed.
Oh I know! A train passed by my signal on one of the tracks and it went from green to red and a big fella a couple of modules down from me called out and said..." Did I just see that signal go from green to red...how did you do that!" Maybe that was Big B.
Maybe I can help you a bit.
Here's the site for Northern New Jersey N-Trak, http://www.nnjn-trak.org
When you get to the home page, scroll down to "Atlantic City N-Scale Weekend."
Look for "Mike Wongs Photo Site," click on that. A photo album of the meet will come up, proceed to page nine, there's a group shot of the members in the middle of the spread, click on it, click again for max enlargement. "Big B's" wearing a baseball cap and standing under sign right under the "www."
I very much doubt you took a door off his car, he'd be talking about it non-stop from that day to this!
Yes we discussed that some time ago....I was with the Bluewater International group out of Sarnia/Port Huron. Cannot remember the hosting club...SONS Group? Perhaps if I concentrate I will get it by the morning. Perhaps '89-'90? Possibly a bit later.
I was just founding a new group around that time called the MOB...Misssissauga, Oakville, Burlington. We may have represented ourselves as that, or at least announcing it.
I do not have Dave Kleppers recall of minutia and detail...met a lot of people, you are really pressured and focused at that those things to get set up and not screw up. Can recall quite a bit but names are fading.
Ask your brother in law if he had his door ripped off by some jerk from Canada driving a tour bus.
Northern New Jersey Group...yes maybe! either that or Society of N Scalers.
It went well but they ran a tight ship. Nerve racking experience really, that I remember. The Bluewater group I was with were a pretty laid back bunch, not used to that level of discipline.
It was fun though. My modules, 3 of them, featured custom painted GTW green and gold and steam from the mid fifties.
An N-Trak meet in that area? Say, when was that, and was Northern New Jersey N-Trak the hosting organization? You may have run into Lady Firestorm's brother "Big B!"
Yup...works good now! Thanks Firelock.
Always saw ads and coupons for the Palisades Park on the back pages of comic books.
Marvel comics used Palisades as a backdrop for many of the encounters between the superhero and the villain. The big tip off was that parachute ride thingie.
I was always like ' geez, not fair, I can't go there but some day I will!
By the time I could it was a goner. Went to an N-Trak meet in that area and was so disappointed to discover of its demise. My best memory from that trip was finding some really rare hard to get Arnold Rapido auto racks, stopping to tap the Tapeen Zee bridge and taking a guys door off of his car with my ex Niagara Tours Bus on a very narrow street. We settled up, no problems.
I still laugh out loud when I recall the look on that guys face.
Miningman Firelock --Video "Unavailable" ,,,try from another angle
Firelock --Video "Unavailable" ,,,try from another angle
OK. I got it. I'm having trouble with gremlins tonight.
I thought gremlins disappeared with the end of World War Two! Or when Warner Brothers stopped starring them in Bugs Bunny cartoons! Jeez! Try 'em again everybody.
I'd guess that just about any major urban area with a trolley system had a park at one end of it, it was a good way to keep revenue coming in on weekends when the commuters were at home.
Here in Richmond VA for example, the local trolley company built Forest Hill Park just for that reason. It's just a mile or two across the James River from downtown Richmond. The trolleys are long gone but the concrete posts that supported the trolley wires are still there on the median of Semmes Avenue, adapted for other purposes. The park's still there too.
Palisades Amusement Park in Cliffside Park NJ, now gone, had a symbiotic relationship with the local trolley lines. No trolley company built it, but they sure made money bringing patrons to the park.
If you're from that part of the country like I am, and you remember, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOjvDVO3Jzw
Check out who's picking up an order of fries at the hot dog stand.
Man, if that song doesn't make you want to jump up, grab your honey, and dance, even if you have two left feet like I do, you must be dead!
Found an old commercial, too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLVgEP8pOWQ
When I was stationed in Norfolk, VA in the 1970s there was an amusement park called Oceanview Park. I had seen pictures of streetcars on Granby street that ended at the park. Just across the street was a library and the driveways into and out of the parking lot looked like they were curved for rails. I asked about that in the library and they showed me a picture of the streetcar loops on those exact driveways. I understand that a few amusement parks were built to encourage ridership on weekends. I wonder just how many there were?
Chicago (CSL and CTA) had a sizable trolley bus operation. The last runs took place in 1972.
Seattle (King County Metro) also has trolley buses.
"Build the trolley and the will come" was the method adopted by land developers in the early 1900's. They built trolley lines to provide access to and promote their developments. Most of the lines were gone shortly after the last lot was sold.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Grew up in Cincinnati which had Marmon-Herrington trolley buses. Before Cincinnati, lived in Milwaukee (until 1943) which had St Louis, Pullman, & Twin Coach models. If I recall, they had rear air scoops on the rear roof for cooling the motor.
http://www.trolleybuses.net/mke/htm/usa_h_mke_sl_263.htm
Always remember their acceleration, Driver didn't have to say step to the rear, just hit the accelerator and you were moved toward the back. Quiet also.
I believe Dayton, Vancouver and San Francisco still have trolley bus operations.
Also, It was my understanding that the first electric streetcars that Frank Sprague developed used a small four wheeled cart thad rode on two wires above the tracks and was connected to the car by a cable and was called a troller (like trolling for fish). From this came the word TROLLEY. It was not succesful and he next developed the spring loaded pole with a wheel which was succesful. and was called a trlley pole. Later the shoe with a graphite insert became the standard. Overseas, Bows and then pantagraphs were the pickup of choice.
Harvard Square, Cambridge, not Central Square, is where the TTs run in a tunel. Still do. The Brills were very quiet TTs, very little gear noise. The Pullmans were not bad. You were hearing the Flyers, rebuilt with old mechanicals and electricals salvaged from scrapped Pullmans. The Brills had gone by 1975. To bad, they were very well made, rode very well, and had fine sounding Klaxon, to beautiful to be just called a horn. But high-floor of course, and higher and thus more difficult to board for the infirm, than the Pullmans.
Edmonton had some TTS with GM bodies and Brown Brevori Swiss electricals and mechnicals, and they were really great TTs. And yes, the ERA had a fantrip, and yes, there was a dewirement.
When I was looking at colleges, I think in early 1975, I was fascinated to discover that Alice's rabbit hole of a tunnel in Central Square, then populated with dark-green buses that looked like they were built about 1928 and had headlights like dim light bulbs screwed upright in front of dull pans. I did not think you could have more agonized gear noise than a contemporary MP54 or IND early R steel, but those things were trying. In the relatively short time I watched, I saw three dewirements - 'cutting the turn a little wide' being something that day's drivers seemed prone to.
The drivers would get out, walk back, horse the poles over to where the wires were and flip them back on. I confess I was waiting with some interest for one of these to slew so far over that the poles couldn't re-engage; presumably something like a wrecker would pull the bus back under and line it up if, or perhaps when, such a thing happened.
54light15 Funny how the language of air traffic control is English but the language of the aircraft is French. Nacelle, aileron, longeron, empennage and so forth.
Funny how the language of air traffic control is English but the language of the aircraft is French. Nacelle, aileron, longeron, empennage and so forth.
Probably Alberto Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian-born aviation pioneer living in Paris at the same time the Wrights were getting started had something to do with it.
While the Wrights successfully flew a heavier-than-air aircraft first, they were a bit quiet about it and didn't seek publicity while they were refining their designs. If I recall correctly, Alberto managed it three years later but was quite the self-promoter and had a big audience when he did it, something the Wrights didn't have. Needless to say, France went aviation crazy, so possibly that's why the language of the aircraft itself is French.
Just guessing, but it kind of makes sense, to me anyway.
Also, while wire frogs for streetcars and interurbans are usually passive, located so the pole exerts the force on the shoe or whieel to go in the right direction; TT wire frogs each usually have a movable point, with the control much as track switches for streetcars. This means drawing power one direction, coasting the other, or a delibrate low-frequency AC control circuit.
The shoes pivot also, and are about five times as long as they are wide. The length of their sides keeps them sligned with the wire, and still does not provide too much of a binding on sharp curves. If the were longer the latter would become a problem. But TT dewirements do recurr more frequently than with streetcars, as anyone riding TTs regularly will recount. If a driver (operator?) jerks the bus to the side by rapid movement of the steering wheel at the same time as pushing the accelerator to the floor or almost to the floor, a dewirement will occur.
Classic Trains Forum has a recounting of a trolleybus fantrip 67 years ago. I recall that there was a dewirement in Central Square Cambridge a the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street on that trip. I have a photo of the driver at the trolley ropes and plan on posting it on Sunday on that thread if I have access to wideband at HU Mt. Scopus.
Shoes have been used in place of a wheel since about the 1920's on interurbans, streetcars, trolley buses, etc. A shoe has less moving parts and makes better contact with the wire.
One question about trolley buses that has puzzled me over the years. I'm aware that the poles have swivel bases that allow the bus to maneuver in traffic and pull up to the curb. What is the mechanism that keeps the shoe against the wire while the bus changes lanes, maneuvers in traffic, etc.?
CSSHEGEWISCH The only vehicles to which I have ever referred as "trolley" have two poles and rubber tires. If they rode on rails, they were and are streetcars. Both of these usages go back to my dim and distant youth (1960's).
The only vehicles to which I have ever referred as "trolley" have two poles and rubber tires. If they rode on rails, they were and are streetcars. Both of these usages go back to my dim and distant youth (1960's).
The electric buses I was used to (Dayton) had two poles with groved shoes to contact the wires. i.e., they had no trolley wheel wire contacts.
In New York and Washington, DC, streetcar was used, because much of the network was conduit, and trolley would be inacurate.
In Philly in the '60s we called the vehicles with two poles and rubber tires "Trackless Trolleys"
English is also the official international language of aviation. There's a fun story concerning the same...
Twenty-years-plus ago a Lufthansa pilot was contacting the control tower at Frankfurt Airport, and spoke to them in German. The tower man responded politely asking him to speak English.
"What for?" asked the German pilot. "I'm a German pilot, in German aircraft, at an airport in Germany!"
Then a British Airways pilot broke in: "Because you lost the war, old boy!"
A solution to that problem might be an English Speaking Union. All countries where English is an official language are Democracies and not ruled by tyrants. And Israel and India could join, because English is an official language in both Israel and India. (Israel has Hebew, English, and Arabic as official languages.) I do not know the current state in Jordan concerning this. In India, English is an official language along with Hindi, and there may be others.
Don't be surprised if some people want to call them "trams" because that's what the British do. Quite a few Anglophiles here in the US.
Honestly, I think some of them believe the Declaration of Independence was a mistake, but that's another story.
Even though Toronto streetcars use trolley poles, no one calls them trolley cars. But, once the fleet is fully equipped with the new Bombardier cars ( if they ever all get here,) the poles will go away and pantographs will be used.
seppburgh2 Trolleys are making a comeback and here are some of the reasons why: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-real-reason-streetcars-are-making-a-comeback/vi-AAqCS4r
Trolleys are making a comeback and here are some of the reasons why:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-real-reason-streetcars-are-making-a-comeback/vi-AAqCS4r
FYI, some urbanistas would have a cow over you using the term trolley. They have pulled some BS out of thin air and decided that the proper modern term is street car.As many of us rail fans know, trolley is the modern term coming from the trolley wheel. Streetcar is a term that goes back when they were just carriages pulled by horses on wood rails down a city street.
terrific
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.