[PRCo] Fwd: Miscellanea

[Fred Schneider]

These came from Peter Folger.   I have left his address in case some of you might like to contact him to be added to his list.
What I found particularly stunning are the Key System and Interurban Electric (SP Red Electric) previews in the first link.  It reminds me of a very pleasant evening in 1972 sitting in Harre Demoro's basement in Oakland watching old movies from his archive.   Because travel was so expensive in that period (prewar), we seldom saw anything outside our immediate area.   People from eastern Pennsylvania, for example got as far from home as Washington or New York but Boston was out of the question.   A few of our local people got to Indiana and Illinois a couple of times but that was stretching it.   So going to the local railroad club meetings never included shows of the west coast!  

Those gorgeous Key System bridge trains that were built for the opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were anything but modern under the skin.   They consisted of brand new bodies with recycled hardware from the scrapped old wooden cars.   Why were they so comfortable running those used elevated cars from the Manhatten Elevated Railway on the Richmond Shipyard Railway during the war?   Because electrically and mechanically ... control, motors, compressors were the same as the equipment on the streamlined Bridge cars.   Those Bridge cars had ancient GE type M control ... probably 30 years old when the cars were built.   And they were slow as turtles.   Maximum speed flat out was somewhere around 40 mph with a good tail wind .... something like half what a BART car will do.   

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Peter Folger" <transitman at maine.rr.com>
Date: March 8, 2012 10:26:49 AM EST
To: undisclosed
Subject: Miscellanea

 
Miscellanea
KEY SYSTEM SCRAPBOOK PART 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXbicSxD0_g&feature=related

San Francisco Street Car Ride - Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf.

(Note - PCC cars, Milan Peter Witts, Trackless Trolleys & buses with

the added benefit of a most erudite operator!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEPOHidRp4w&feature=related

Old Trams (WWII Era) in the Winter in Boston - Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line.

(Note the added on roof air conditioners on the front of the roof.  The map decals were the

idea of Danny Cohen.  Replicating what they once had.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRCGUZEUmoI&feature=related

Driving a PCC on the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line in Boston

(only trolley line that ran through a cemetary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OZ4WGREAa4&feature=related

Boston Light Rail - Green Line 2012.

( a combination of the best looking and ugliest LRT cars in North America )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtO-_hwjxqI&feature=related

The SilverLine (Trolleybus) of Boston, USA.

( a new reincarnation of the old New Jersey - "All Service Vehicles" )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUvCFIDbCZI&feature=related

Peter Folger
P.O.Box 1741
Biddeford, ME 04005-1741
transitman at maine.rr.com