[PRCo] True Tales -- Another Installment

[Herb Brannon]

This one I call,   Two Days // Two Trolley Poles
   
   
  In Summer, 1978 I was working weekends on the 35 and 36, having Thursday and Friday as off-days. This was on a July Saturday and the weather was nice. It was sunny and around 75 degrees and everything was running pretty normal. I had a 1700 series interurban car and it was a good runner. I left Library Loop and made all the time points on the 'advertised' schedule times. I had a moderate passenger load, maybe 28 or 30 people on board. 
   
  We came gliding into Castle Shannon to the front of the former car house Administration Building, now the Castle Shannon Municipal Building. Continuing on past leafy Linden Grove heading north through the sparkling sunlight. The car was running great. It held the rail well. The only odd thing was a "twanging" sound every now and then coming from the overhead. I made a mental note to tell the zone supervisor, who would be at South Hills Junction. 
   
  On we sped stopping every now and then for passengers boarding or alighting. Then past Ansonia Street and the beginning of the South Busway and joint running with the buses. This was really good track and in a flash we were at the Saw Mill Run Blvd overpass and the end of joint bus/rail car operation and the beginning of single track. I got a 'good' light and started across the bridge. 
   
  Then there was a very loud 'twanging' noise and the interior lights (which operated directly off the 600-volt DC trolley wire and which I kept on at all times) began flashing on and off. We made it across the bridge and into the curve just before the passing siding. All the time the lights were flashing and the 'twanging' was replaced with 'banging' noise. Then the car began slowing down. A couple pushes on the power pedal told me the car was dead.
   
  I could get no power whatsoever. Checking all the circuit breakers in the cabinet under the dash showed no open breakers. Next thing was to get out and check outside. Now, what I saw when I stepped outside and began looking around made me speechless for a minute. The trolley pole was bent into a pretzel type of shape and the wheel and harp were missing from the end of the pole. A piece of trolley rope, about three feet long, still hung off the bent pole. The remaining rope had wound itself back inside the retriever after the rope broke. Now, looking up the overhead wire was really in bad shape. All the wire on the bridge was hanging about 10 feet above the tracks with some span wires broken. The wire in the curve was just above the car and many spans and pull-offs were broken and/or down. 
   
  My radio was out, so I started walking north, toward the next telephone box at Smith Siding. When I got to Smith the outbound car was coming into the siding and that operator called the Traffic Controller and related the details back to them. 
   
  All in all the line was down for a good three hours. No cars could move through the Overbrook trackage since the wires were down and my car was disabled in single track. Buses had to take over between South Hills Jct and Castle Shannon and all 35 and 36 cars were operating via Mount Lebanon and down the 38A trackage to Castle Shannon then out to Library or Drake. Repair crews made temporary repairs to the overhead and got a new pole on my car. When I finally got to move again it was one-hour past my quitting time. So I sat out the last three hours of my run broken down.
   
  What caused all this...............the trolley wheel split into two pieces right around the groove. The now 'two piece' wheel caught the overhead wire between the two halves and pulled broke the overhead apart from hangars on the bridge. The pole and wheel must have let loose once and bounced down and up again, catching in the overhead wire a second time and pulling apart more of the wiring. The harp and wheel then separated from the pole and was flung off to the side of the tracks. The rope broke somewhere during all this and the pole shot up into the overhead in the curve and as it caught on spans and pull-offs became bent and also broke the spans and pull-offs.
   
  Not many people can say they have had this type of thing happen to them. It only happens on real life trolley operations.
   
  Stay tuned folks.................find out what happened on Sunday..............Another installment to follow soon.............................
   
   
  NOTE: 
  Copyright 2007--Herb Brannon--Cleveland, Ohio dba High Energy Productions Ltd. 
  All domestic and international rights reserved. 

Herb Brannon