[PRCo] Re: SE DE

[Richard Allman]

correct! Also, the Dallas cars freed up other cars for Oak Square locals on 
Watertown and more all-electrics for service on Arborway. Remember, at the 
time Riverside opened, it did so without any new cars on the property, 
although the North Cambridge lines and Lenox Street lines had been  closed. 
A few more cars for short turn service feed up rolling stock for service on 
the other lines(Watertown, Commonwealth, Beacon, Riverside, and Arborway)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 6:31 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE


> 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
>>>>
>>
>
>
>