South Hills Junction Web Page

[John Swindler]

Jim Holland wrote in reply to Robert Dietrich:

>
>	Fortunately, most of the cars had their brakes!  And believe it or not, 
>the trip was probably faster outbound than inbound.  Coming outbound the 
>cars were easily between 25-30 mph upgrade  --  the motorman just put it to 
>the floor and kept going.  They probably ran a little slower inbound since 
>the motorman was dragging the brake all the way to prevent a runaway  --  
>25-30 mph downhill is pretty fast for a trolley.
>
>

At the risk of again trying to rely on a questionable memory, vaguely recall 
small metal plate suspended from the trolley span wire at the south end of 
the tunnel with a number punched out that would tell the motorman how much 
time to take going inbound through the tunnel.  That's how speed was 
controlled.  Supervisor could stand on porch in front of his office in 
administration building and time cars going inbound through the tunnel (and 
write up those who didn't take enough time).  Supervisor may even have had 
visibility through tunnel from inside his office.  Simple but effective 
solution.

As for derails, they where inbound on both the 44/47/48 track and the more 
familiar 37/38/42/40 track location.  It was a positive action, delayed 
throw switch.  Motorman had to apply power to throw switch, then apply brake 
because of delayed action.  Again, simple but elegant solution.
Signal light had three positions.  Normal red light in center, then when 
derail switch activated, upper light would show, then when switch physically 
moved, lower green light would show.  Don't know if both derail's were 
interlocked with outbound switch from tunnel, but wouldn't be surprised.  
PRC was not run by a bunch of amateurs.


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