Once again, more of the century-old streetcar tracks, wood ties, et al. in downtown Fresno CA have been uncovered. No report as to whether or not these will all be re-covered with new pavement, torn up for recycling, or preserved in some fashion. It appears that if one is there right now, one can acquire “sourvenirs.” Anybody on the forums live in or near Fresno, for some pick-ups (albeit rusty)?
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/09/24/2090749/crews-unearth-streetcar-rails.html
Interesting article, especially the photo gallery.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/05/13/1931819/fifty-years-of-streetcars-in-fresno.html
Panorama of old Fresno, trolley tracks at Southern Pacific station.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/pan/6a17000/6a17600/6a17661r.jpg
Things like this can turn up in almost any large or not-so-large American city. In many if not most instances, the tracks were just paved over with another layer of asphalt and not removed when streetcar service was discontinued. In the neighborhood where I grew up, I can remember that the street on which the streetcars ran had a higher crown than other streets.
A similar item exists in Dallas. Our street car system was shut down in the late 40’s. Most of the tracks were abandoned in place and eventually black topped over. Today the tracks are still in place with the only removals occurring during a major road construction. In several places the tracks were cut to lay pipelines. Other than this the tracks are in place. A vintage street car line was established on McKinney Avenue at the time the black top was removed to expose the historic brick paving. The tracks were originally built to such high standards that minimal track work was required to put it back in service. The condition was vastly superior to that shown in the Fresno photos. We now have a vintage street car system, the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, or MATA, operating with six vintage street cars. It is a great tourist attraction and we invite you to visit and ride if in the area. The good part is the fare is FREE.
You will find similar circumstances in many large cities where streetcar service ended. I have encountered streetcar rails attempting to find their way back to the surface all over Baltimore, and I have seen it in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Richmond, Chicago, and other places.
The biggest problem some of these tracks create is that trolley or light rail advocates, eager for any excuse to bring back their beloved trolleys, say “The city can just uncover the rails and put them back into use!” It’s seldom that simple. Most such track lines have been severed many times during the installation of new water/sewer/etc. lines or repairs to same. And just because a track may exist on one street doesn’t mean that’s where a present-day transit line should run–ever seen once-thriving commercial districts that are now ghost towns and abandoned ruins?
In Baltimore, for years city works crews would uncover and drag up streetcar rails that were in the way of infrastructure repairs, and deliver the authentic girder rails intact to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum (a private non-profit situated on city-owned lands) for reuse on their (relatively short) demonstration trackage. In the last decade or so, the reality is that the rails still buried have become so corroded, pitted, and brittle that it’s all but impossible to remove them intact without breaking, and the BSM has largely replaced what trackage it could with traditional T-rail rather than girder rail.
And people in Baltimore still lobby for “just uncover the rails up [such-and-such] Road and reuse them!”, regardless of the fact that said rails are 5’ 4 12" gauge and totally incompatible with the present-day Light Rail line or just about any commercially-available rail equipment. No matter how many times you explain the gauge and brittle rail, they just won’t listen. Perhaps some form of exorcism of the idea is in order…
We were very lucky that the rails in McKinney avenue were in almost perfect condition with very few utility cuts. We did have to lay new rail to complete our turn loops, etc but over 50% of our initial trackage was vintage rails.
LNER 4472-Perhaps you can enlighten me on a little Baltimore trolley info. During the 50’s I spent most of my summers with relatives in north Baltimore. At that time the trolley line from Towson to Catonsville was still in service. Is it still operating, if not about when was its demise? I remember riding the PRR from Harrisburg to Baltimore but I think this line is gone although part is being used for light rail. What was the reason for its abandonment?
Thank you for your help.
Dick Watkins
Towson to Catonsville was the #8 line, among the last in service, lasting until November 1963 when all Baltimore Transit streetcar operations ceased. None of the old routes see service today; the new Light Rail line is standard gauged.
PRR York-Baltimore was in service for a passenger train (the DC connection of the Broadway Limited) until Amtrak 1971, and then was hit by severe flooding in several locations in York and Baltimore Counties, which Penn Central couldn’t afford to repair. York County eventually repaired York-New Freedom, Pa. in the 1980s with state grants; the line from New Freedom to Cockeysville, Md. survives as the very popular Northern Central Rail Trail for bikes, pedestrians, and horses.
People seem to forget too that just uncovering the old rail is not enough – you need to replace the overhead catenary, power sub-stations, and all of the other support structure in order to run a trolley car or LRV.
I may stand corrected on this, but I believe that the Old Pueblo trolley in Tucson utilizes the trackwork of the original system. In the last year, a new extension to a loop downtown has been added.
John Timm
Not necessarily–there do exist diesel MU “light rail” cars such as those used on South Jersey’s NJ Transit River Line. Such systems, of course, pretty well negate the “clean, green” claims of light rail advocates, however.
There’s a proposal in Washington D.C. to restore streetcars to the downtown areas as well as the currently-abuilding Anacostia line, but opponents want nothing to do with stringing wire over The Mall, Pennsylvania Avenue, and other “important vistas.”
They wouldn’t have to string overhead wire anywhere and spoil any vista.
Washington DC’s system used underground electrical power universally by the 1900’s, after all horse powered systems, cable car systems, and overhead lines were converted.
Here’s a nice shot of Washington PCC cars that illustrates the lack of wires and the underground conduit system between the rails.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Thomas_circle_December_1943.JPG
So if they’re using the false belief that they’d have to string trolley wire everywhere to hold back progress of restoring streetcar systems that America should’ve never let be abandoned in the first place, they really should go back and rexamine their own history. The solution was in place in Washington well over a century ago.
I was just in the area not to long ago and never knew what I was driving over. I guess when you start digging things up you never know what you can find.
A conduit system is an awfully expensive way to avoid installing overhead wire. Consider that the street would have to be torn up and rebuilt to install the conduit, attaching and detaching the contact plows would require manual labor and isn’t cheap, the conduit slot would have to be kept clear of snow and other debris, etc., etc., etc. I’m not aware of any locales besides parts of Washington and Manhattan that used conduits.
(1) Any cut spike held track buried in pavement is an accident or broken rail waiting to happen. If that’s OH pre-1939 rail buried in the pavement, bad things will happen faster. Take a good look at any rail being removed after being in pavement for any length of time, the basewear is ugly. If you nick the head of the rail uncovering it or opening-up the flangeway, you’re pretty well screwed, glued and tattoo’ed as well.
(2) The greenies and the light-rail advocates are whistling in the dark if they think there is no energy wasted in the wires between the power plant and the light-rail car. The argument don’t fly except with those wearing the drug induced rose colored glasses… (and generally all you are doing is displacing the emissions as well)
I believe that Magnetic-Levitation train technology also uses some kind of magnetic energy transfer to accomplish the linear motor thing without needing actual electrical contacts for that - though I could be way, way, wrong on that recollection. Anyway, if that’s correct, that or something similar might be adaptable to power streetcars in these situations. The street would still have to be torn up to install those strips, but they would then be far safer in that they would be ‘live’ only when a car is directly above them. As I recall, there were some problems with the conduit shocking people and horses in wet weather and the like, at least in the ‘early’ days . . . [:-^]
[:-,] Otehrwise, can you imagine what might happen if some inebriated person decides to ‘relieve’ himself on or near that convenient slot in the pavement . . . [:O]
We have a demo/Historic Street Trolley (Platte Valley Trolley) that runs around pulling a motorcar trailer with a genset on it down a portion of the former C&S/BN South Platte River line…
There is a similar similar setup in Astoria, Washington, using an ex-San Antonio car with a generator that they tow along behind. However, this is on former SP&S trackage, not an actual street car line.
John Timm
Last year in Muscatine Iowa, there was a long narrow hole in the street. Took a closer look one day and saw rail buried in the street. I kept meaning to bring my camera and get a photo, but never got the chance. The street has since been repaved (with the rails still in place). They were the remains of the trolley system in Muscatine. Some of the business in Muscatine have photos of the trolleys on the walls. I usually stop and stare for a while.
You also have the problem that cities that have snow use salt or other corrosive stuff to clear snow and ice in winter. These chemicals are very damageing to conduit systems. While Washington DC doesn’t like to admit is gets big snowstorms, the fact of the matter is that it does.
CSSHEGEWISCH Paul is correct that only DC and NYC had UG conduit power distribution systems after 1900 or so, per William D. Middleton’s classic survey and reference volume The Time of the Trolley. There were a few other places that used it for a short period of time on a trial, experimental, or developmental basis - such as Boston, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo - but none of them lasted more than a few years. It was the Denver one that had the problem with horses and people getting shocked in wet weather, again per Middleton.
In the ‘technology of the trolley’ appendix, Middleton says the big problem with the conduit system is that it required expensive, complicated, custom, and troublesome ‘special trackwork’ at all switches/ turnouts, crossings, and the like. I - and the mudchicken, too, I believe - would recoil in horror at having to maintain such a monstrosity in an urban environment these days with the usual amount of traffic, debris, and especially any significant annual amount of precipitation. A better solution would be either an on-board battery bank with enough capacity to ‘power through’ for a 100 yards or so; or, a supplemental short section of overhead trolley wire, similar to what NYC did at Grand Central Terminal where the ‘puzzlework’ switches interfered with the 3rd rail power supply for long enough distances to risk stalling - that’s why the S-motors needed those toy-like little pantographs on each end.
Finally, a corrosion expert might have something interesting to say about the implications of the ‘return’ and stray currents from the closely-spaced opposite electrical polarities down in the ground between the rails, on those rails and other nearby facilities . . . [:-^]