[PRCo] Re: SE DE

[Fred Schneider]

I'll go one step farther, I think there was a stub track in between  
the inbound and outbound tracks at Northeastern U where a double-end  
car could layover without blocking the line.

On May 18, 2008, at 6:13 PM, Fred Schneider wrote:

> The Dallas cars were primarily purchased, if my memory works, for
> short turns to Northeastern University on the Huntington Avenue
> line.   That crossover was just outside the subway portal on paved
> private right-of-way.   They had a handful of type 5s still in
> service in 1958 working out of Arborway Car House in that service and
> the eight PCCs were bought to replace them.  Eventually, MTA bought
> the other 17 Dallas PCCs but not necessarily because they needed
> double-end cars.
>
> They only needed the initial 8 double-end PCC cars.   They went into
> service in 1958 and/or 1959 after rebuilding at Everett Shops.
>
> Then on July 4, 1959, MTA opened the Riverside line and found
> themselves dreadfully short of equipment.  I was there that
> weekend.   Everything was fine on the 4th and 5th and then came
> Monday morning July 6th and people descended on Riverside in numbers
> that the MTA simply didn't expect.   They were pulling cars off
> schedule blocks on Cleveland Circle and Beacon Street and moving them
> over to Riverside to handle the crowds.   The yards were totally
> empty.   I was standing with Bruce Bente taking pictures at one of
> the stops east of Reservoir and there were hundreds of people on the
> platform ... maybe 300 or 400.   And that was just one station.
>
> So they bought the other 17 Dallas cars, not necessarily to run as
> double-end cars but because they matched cars they already had in the
> fleet.   Remember that all Boston cars came from Pullman-Standard and
> the Dallas cars were no exception to that rule.  They fit in very
> nicely with the Boston mentality.   Furthermore, a Pullman car was
> easier to fix if you dented it ... you didn't need factory made
> panels like you did with St. Louis-made cars.
>
> Eventually MTA inability to maintain their equipment resulted in the
> Watertown line being abandoned to provide enough cars for the other
> lines.   And then Arborway was also abandoned.   I think both of
> these were only "temporary" changes that because of inactivity became
> permanent with time.   The Dallas cars eventually wound up on
> Mattapan-Ashmont and then in museums.
>
> On May 18, 2008, at 2:26 PM, John Swindler wrote:
>
>> Chicago is the one that I was wondering about.  There was generally
>> no reversing anywhere near the loop, but there were some long,
>> heavy north-south routes.  Maybe I can find a old track map from
>> 1920s to see what sort of terminal facilities existed at some of
>> these terminals.
>>
>> The Dallas PCC cars that went to Boston were to replace Type 5s
>> used as sort-turns near the subway portals.  This is a vague
>> recollection that needs verified.
>>
>> Maybe another question might be who was buying double end equipment
>> for trunk route service in the 1920s???  Brooklyn had several
>> hundred, and the Boston Type 5s came rather late in the game.  But
>> I can not recall ever seeing any pix of 5-6 cars waiting to reverse
>> ends in a large city??
>>
>> John
>>>
>