NC Zones in Pittsburgh & gauntlet (gantlet?)! Overhead

[Robert E. Rathke]

I don't recall ever seeing the poles on Rt. 1 cars being moved manually
at that junction point.   I assume that there was a trolley frog in the
Rt. 5 wire (to split the Spring Hill wire into two wires for the line
going up the hill) on Chestnut St. just north of the wire frog that split
the Spring Hill and Spring Garden wires where the Rt 1 cars diverted
eastward onto Spring Garden Avenue.  If this is the case, there would
have been three frogs within a very short length of wire.

I'm pretty sure I don't have any photos from this location to check the
wires and frogs, but maybe some else has a photo.

And, by the way, except for the most frantic grab-shots,  I ALWAYS make
an effort to get the trolley pole and wire in the photo.  It's just that
I never spent a lot of time studying the wire...except on Spring Hill.

Bob Rathke 7/19


On Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:35:12 -0700 Jim Holland <pghpcc at pacbell.net>
writes:
>Greetings!
>
>Robert E. Rathke wrote:
>> 
>> The 5 Spring Hill line was single track with a loop at the end on 
>Rhine
>> and Buente Streets.  There was a double trolley wire on the single 
>track
>> line, and the trolley wheel rode on the righthand wire;
>> Was double wire on two-direction single track a
>> common practice on PRC?
>
>	Thanks for this observation!  From the photos of 1699 turning 
>from 
>Chestnut onto Spring Garden (April 1991 PTM calendar), it appears that 
>the 
>wire for the 5 Spring Hill is double wire.  But this poses a problem.
>	For the 1 Spring Garden to make a right turn outbound, there 
>must 
>be a standard trolley frog in the outbound 5 Spring Hill wire.  The 
>inbound 1 Spring Garden will use the same track to turn back to 
>Chestnut 
>(and the photo clearly shows a single wire on this turn) which means 
>that 
>the inbound 1 Spring Garden trolley will end up on the right side / 
>outbound 5 Spring Hill wire so another two frogs are needed to get 
>this 
>trolley to the inbound wire!  Do you remember the configuration here?  
>
>Can't use a crossing as then the outbound trolley could not switch 
>wire 
>properly.  Or possibly a 1 Spring Garden car had to move the pole over 
>
>manually!
>
>-- 
>James B. Holland
>       PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY (PRCo), June of 1949 -- June of 
>1953
>       To e-mail *off-list,* please click here: 
>mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
>N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.mcs.net:80/~weyand/nmra/
>
>

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