I confess I did not read the question carefully enought. I thought the same line was discussed, the switchback and the conversion from TT to rail! Look forward to the next question.
With no new question for five days I’ll throw this one out:
Several cities’ streetcar systems used odd gauges. In several cities, the gauges were inherited from the cable care systems the electric streetcars replaced. In one East Coast city the gauge was wider than standard, and even wider than the 5’2 1/2" Pennsylvania gauge. In the case of the west coast city, the gauge was narrow. Both cities stuck with their odd gauges into the PCC era, and both had at at least some period of their history some stretches of dual gauge track shared with interurbans, and the city with broad gauge track had some suburban operations that were standard gauge. Both cities now have modern Light Rail systems. Name the cities, and the track gauges.
My apologies for not getting back here.
The west coast is easy the east coast eludes me for the moment.
Thx IGN
Baltimore’s wide gauge was a quarter of an inch wider than the Pennsylvania wide gauge, and still exists at the Baltimore trolley museum, a worth while three-block walk from the Amtrak station, where one can ride a wide-baube PCC. And of course the interurban line was the Washington Baltimore and Annapolois, with standard gauge and frieght interchange with the steam railroads, particularly the B&O. There may have been some suburban operations at standard gauge that got converted to narrow. The modern light rail system is standard gauge in Baltimore.
Los Angeles had narrow gauge local streetcars, including PCC’s, with dual gauge track with Pacific Electric, which also had PCC’s, standard gauge. The PE PCC’s never ran on the same tracks as the Los Angeles Railway PCC’s, however, but PE’s heavy wood and steel interurban cars did.
The San Francisco remaining cable cars are narrow gauge, but wider than meter or three-foot. After the 1906 fire, the massive conversion to trolley wire electric power took place, and stahdard gauge was adopted except for the lines that remained cable.
Possibly Yakima had wide gauge local streetcars with standard gauge interurbans.
Toronto has a wide gauge that is narrower than Pennsylvania broad gauge, and three-rail dual gauge is impractical. There were suburban operations that were standard gauge, but there were end-on-end connections and no through running. The one remaining, the Long Branch line, was converted to Toronto gauge many many years agom with through operation. This included the interurbans, which just did not run downtown. The modern light rail system is an evlotuionary development, with much classic streetcar operation still in place, and still; uses the special Toronto gauge. So do their heavy rail rapid transit lines, which preclude extensions over suburban railroads lines. Go Tranist,
Baltimore’s broad gauge was 5’ 4 1/2", about two inches wider than Penn. gauge. Baltimore it is, with the WB&A sharing one rail from 1908 to 1921. L.A. used 3’ 6" gauge inherited from the cable cars. S.F’s cable gauges were all over the place, from 3’6" (remaining lines, plus others) to 5’ (most of which got wiped out by the 1906 quake). Market St was standard gauge. Both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh had 5’2 1/2" cable railways, but early electric cars used the same gauge by statute, not takeover. All of New York’s, Chicago’s and D.C.'s cable lines were standard gauge, and heavy enough that electrification was done without replacing the cable tracks, though both NY and DC later rebuilt them for better slot operation.
Portland OR used 3’6" gauge, but that was inherited from steam dummy operations. The cable lines adopted the dummy gauge before the electric lines were built.
Your question, Dave.
We all know about the move back to rail operation from an Office of Defense Transportation order in March 1942. Streetcar service replaced buses on the Putnam line in Brooklyn, where most of the wire and all of the track was still in place. Full time streetcar services was restored on Harvard - Massachusetts Station, Massachusetts Station - Dudley, Lechemere - Spring Hill, Lechemere - Salerm Street, and a few other lines that been run with streetcars during weekday rush hours only and busses at all other times. This was repeated in other places across the USA. But in one of the two city systems discussed above, there was a line complete with track and wire, and in use for regular non-revenue moves, that was not converted back to rail passenger operation. Which line was this and why was it not converted back to rail pasenger operation for the duration of the war? And it was and is a reasonably heavily used line. If you know the answer, go on and describe the regular non-revenue use. Answer if you do not know the reason for the continued use of rubber-tired vehicles on this line, answern if you can describe the regular non-revenue use, and I will explain why rail vehicles where not used for passenger service…
You may be right about the Baltimore streetcar gauge. I think whay confused my memory is that there is actually a 1/4-inch difference between Pittsburgh’s and Philadelphia’s gauges, and this exists even today!
I think the SF cable cars have 42-inch gauge, not 36.
I must have missed the quote marks. SF’s cable cars are 3 foot 6 inch (3’6") or 42" as you note. That seems to have been very popular with cable builders.
Denver had 42" cable cars but ended up with 36" gauge electrics, including some interurbans. The oddest gauge I’ve found is 38" on the Monterey and Pacific Grove in California (later changed to standard) for which no explanation has survived.
Correction, the lines to Spring Hill and Salem St. were from Sullivan Square, the lines from Lechmere had already been converted before the DOT announcement to rubber tires. As soon as WWII was over the two lines above were back to rush hour only streetcars and then to full-time trolleybuses. The Fellway line from Sullivan Sq past Salem St. to Elm St. continiiued rail for many many more years.
Here is a hint on the rubber-tired line that had its streetcar facilities intact during WWII wihtout any revenue streetcar moves. The bus line was a trolleybus line, which had been converted from streecar just by installing the negative wires and necessary trolley frogs and special work at junctions. The track continued to be maintained for service moves. As passenger traffic buit up just before and during WWII the non-revenue moves became very regular, at the start and end of rush hours, and the rail equpmment that moved could handle lots of passenger but did not handle any passengers on this specific trolleybus route. At one end of the trolleybus line, the rail equpment was stored. At the other end it went into passenger service and left passenger service. The conversion from streetcars to trolleybuses took place four or five years before Pearl Harbor. Many railfan specials touring this system used this line.
The line where the equpment moves provided passenger service is still in operaton today with modern light rail equpment. I believe the trolleybus line in now a regular diesel bus line. Its track was removed some time ago. PCC’s never provided regular paasenger service on the trolleybus line.
It must be the “E” Green line section on Huntington Avenue that now ends at Heath but used to go to Arborway.
The Arborway line was not effected by the restoration of service during WWII because it was a full time subway surface line before and after and was only cut back to Heath Street well after WWII. Also, it ran with all base service PCC cars for many years, and at the end all service was with PCC cars, with LRV’s introduced after it was cut back to Heath Street.
The revenue line for which the regular nonrevenue movements provided equipment did run with PCC’s for many years, but the non-revenue movements were not PCC’s and the only time PCC’s ran over the line were for tests or shop moves or fantrips.
One more hint. Route name, the street, and the general localtion - the same. Also, one can still fine steel rails and overhead wire at both ends of the line. At one end they are together, but with pantographs and no trolley poles. At the other end they are separated and there are trolley poles. But the line today is diesel bus with wires gone and rails paved over.
Correction. It was NOT a service connection during WWII. It was a service connection between the conversion of the revenue line to trolleybus in 1936 or 1938 and its formal abandonment in May 1940. But the track was there all during WWII with the trolleybus wire in fine shape and unchanged from the time rail vehicles used the positive wires, sp streetcar service could have been restored. The hints in the previous posts should give enough clues for an answer.
But I will give the explanaiton as to why rail service was not restored. To meet vastly increased ridership, cars intended for scrapping were put back into service. At one point during the war, 100 PCC’s were received to add to those already in service, but only 37 old cars were scrapped. All the old cars restored to service were built before WWI. They required constant maintenance to keep them operation. The trolleybus fleet was quite new and requjired far less shop attention. Regarding tires, the system found ways of stretching rubber supplies through recapping. So it made sense to keep runnign TT’s on the line and not convert it back to rail.
Now, which line is this?
This is way before my time around the T but from what records I can find It looks like 77 Harvard-Lechmere via Cambridge St. Rail, Overhead and Pans at Lechmere, TT overhead at Harvard. You could still see some rail peeking through pavement into the 1980s at least.
Boston’s two biggest classes of pre-PCC streetcars were very different. The Center-Entrance cars (3000s) were heavy, MU-capable and required two man operation. The “Type 5s” (5000 series) were cheaply built, (sort of) suitable for one-man operation, single unit only. The Type 5s also had very aggressive controllers and “stonewall” brakes. Even with top speeds of 12 MPH (series) and 24MPH (parallel) they could make a pretty good schedule.
The “A” Watertown Green Line was a victim of PCC shortages in the 1960s after the “D” Riverside line opened. The line to Watertown was kept open for access to the Watertown shops, where some PCC maintenance but lots of service equipment maintenance was done. The wire down Washington Ave was never converted for pans, and some T service equipment still uses trolley poles, or at least did so until very recently.
You got the answer. It must have been quite a sight to see a little Pullman trolleycoach followed by a three-car center-entrance train going from the Bennet Street carhouse near Harvard Square (and these movements went through the square on the surface tracks usually) to go into service at Lechemere on the Beacon Street Riversie Line. In the Spring of 1940, the Boston Elevated finally added enough tracks at the Reservoir carhouse yard to discontiniue having to base Beacon Street center entrance trains at Harvard.
The third and oldest class of pre-PCC’s were the Type 4’s, and they were kept busy during WWII. The last were kept for the Northwestern U (Huntington Av. subway portal) - N. Station service, and finally ten Type 5’s were equipped with Tomlinson non-mu couplers to replace them in that service in 1953. Type 4’s hauled center-entrance trailers, a few trains running into Maverick in East Boston in the early 1940’s. No trailers were around at the end of the war, the last being scrapped with the third PCC delivery. The Type 5’s with couplers were replaced by the Dallas cars. 77 had been operated by Type 4’s before conversion to TT. Massachusetts allowed one-man operation of cars withOUT the Birney pattented safety features normal to all other one-man “safety cars” or its foot-peded release to apply varient used by Third Avenue and Omaha.
Your question.
Some Type 4s converted to snowplows are still around, at least in museums. Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine has a center-entrance car (6131) under reconstruction with a new underframe to replace the salt-rotted original. The pattern car 6270 may get the same treatment later as at least some duplicate parts were made. Seashore also has two type 5s, one in service in Maine (5281) and one on permanent loan to the T, stored in Boylston St. station (5734).
Here’s the new question:
This city car line had several interesting features:
One end of the line was extended through the trainshed of a major station. The extension outlasted the main car line.
The line had some sections where the tracks ran in a “side median” between the main travel lanes and a parking area.
This was the only line owned by this one of four companies that made up the city system.
The outward end of the line shared track with a suburban company, the city line and the suburban line each owning one track for about a mile and a half. The suburban company converted its portion to bus more than a decade before the city line was converted.
Was the trainshed used by steam railroads or just by interurban electric railroads and streetcars?
Steam Railroads.
The city line involved is the Roosevelt Road (12th Street) line on Chicago Surface Lines, trackage owned by the Chicago Rys, which covered most North Side and West Side lines. The suburban company involved would be Chicago & West Towns. The Cermak Road line was the only one operated on Southern Street Ry trackage.
Absolutely correct - The C&WT line was the zigzag Chicago Avenue line that ran on Chicago Ave and Harlem in Oak Park (River Forest), Madison, Des Plaines and Roosevelt in Forest Park and Cicero, and Laramie in Cicero.
Your question!
You mean the 12th Street line actually ran into Central Station? Or is the question confusing as referring to two different lines?