. . . because I’ve never seen it asked before. Nonetheless, I’m at the point in my hobby where I’ve got to know:
How do trolleys change tracks? The lines don’t have switches. What, if anything, must the motorman do to make a trolley car, say, diverge left instead of staying on the main track?
They do too have switches. But very small and buried. The one in Little Rock has the wye buried in one intersection. Approx 30 feet by 30 feet square. You need to keep your feet out of the slots in the concrete because those switches can throw at any time and cut… no… mash your foot off.
When you say lines are you referring to the track or the overhead wires? If its the wires, there are little do-hickies (name escapes me) which direct the pole depending on the load being drawn. Ie, to go straight the trolly has to have power applied but to take the diverging track the trolly has to coast. I’m sure someone with more knowledge of such things will post a more detailed and accurate description.
The switches are powered from the traction power. If the trolley car is taking power, the switch reverses. If it is coasting, then, the switch is normal. So, to take the diverging route, the motorman will slow or stop just before the switch, then notch out. For the normal route, he just coasts thru.
Many trolleys/streetcars used single point switches and had a frog for the other side. The point when diverging or acting as the guard rail when going straight forced the other wheel through the frog correctly. The overhead was not a problem for pantographs, for poles I’m not sure how that was handled. For underground systems where the wire was between the tracks below street level, the motorman had a handle to raise and lower the slider and I think they coasted through areas where it had to be raised. For third rail systems where a wiper was needed I think they coasted also.
Wrong on the conduit system. The double faced “plough” could move from side to side, but not up and down. But you are correct about coasting through. Interestingly enough, since nearly all crossings (not switches) on conduit lines were double track for both lines, since conduit was only used in built-up areas with heavy transit service, there was polarity reversal when going though the crossing, which didn’t matter with series dc field-coil motors. There was a slight horzontal taper of the power rails on each side of the conduit slot where the power rail was interrupted, so the spring shoes on each side of the plow would engage the rail without any problem after going through the gap. Although the plow could move from side to side (indeed, in London all the way to the side of the tram and more to coast to a center slot between the two tracks at the point where the switch from conduit to overhead wire was made, thus not requiring the “plow pits” for removal of the plows at such locations in New York and Washingnton) the plow was guided by the edge rails that could be seen in the street and had centering springs (like the front trucks of a steam locomotive) so that at a switch, with the right conduit design, the plow went in the same direction as the streetcar’s wheels. The edges of the plows in contact with the edge rails of the conduit were about ten inches or a foot in length, thus easily spanning the approximately three-inch gap at crossings. Visually, on the street, cable-car switches and crossings aren’t any different, but the grip is an entirely different matter, mechanically, than the plow.
London’s conduit trams had the plough carrier attached to the bottom of the car body, but New York and Washington had them attached to the truck bolster. Side-to-side motion was allowed to be greater on the New York plough carriers than the Washington cars, so a New York car could
Okay, if I am assimmilating this info properly, on a streetcar (trolley) line, the motorman has to coast thru the intersection to stay on the main.
If he must diverge, though, he will power into the realm of the switch and the fact of his power being engaged will send the switch in the proper direction.
Sometimes I am amazed how smart people were in 1910.
But if I’m still missing the point [xx(] , please let me know! - a. s.
This arrangement works most of the time - but I have been on many Toronto trolleys where the pole failed to engage either groove. Then the now-dead trolley blocks traffic in all directions until the motorman walks around and reseats the trolley.
Somewhat along the same lines of forced application of electricity, has anyone here besides me seen a CTA workers “sting” a car with an electric prod? When the L car can’t coast thru an area with no shoe on either side, a worker grabs an instrument with a long, long wand, and Zap! the car jolts foward a little. The empowering device looks to me a little like the wash wands in those do-it-youself car washes.
Stinging is considered unsafe but I don’t think anyone found a way around the practice. Stinging is especially prevalent in the winter months and, while not frequent, most of the times I’ve seen it in use is just north of Belmont/Sheffield station, probably because the diverging-left Ravenswood line tracks call for a lot of frogs and switches and places without shoes.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the CTA maintain a manual tower there? The lines still use the manual block system, or most of them. The CTA is crumbling not only from general lack of attention but plain old archaism and decrepitude.
Replying to diDance, this is a matter of maintenance. The concept works if the trolley frog is level. If the expansion or contraction of the span wire at the frog on one side is greater or less than that on the other, the frog will have a slight tilt to it and the wheel or shoe will go to the higher side, regardless of which way the streetcar is going! Or the frog may be pulled laterally off its “center” (actually not quite center) location. So trolley wire at switches requires inspections. Obiviously, equipping cars with pantographs or bow collectors is an obvious solution, which is why most systems have gone in that direction.
The North Shore had the very best maintained trolley wire, up to its very last hour of operation!
Regarding stingers, did it on occasion myself at the Shore Line Trolley Museum in Branford and East Haven Connecticut, where not all tracks are “wired.”
In early streetcar days, the motorman and/or conductor had a long turning device, kind of a long pole or crank-lever. The working parts of the turnout were below the street. The motorman reached out of the window and inserted the pole device into a hole in the street before the turnout, and then could manually turn the turnout to the direction he needed to go.
thanks - your descriptions of the maintenance problems jibe with my recollections that most trolley poles came off in the winter when temperature and ice really stress the wires.
CTA still has a manned tower at Clark Street. The rapid transit system is also protected by automatic block signals systemwide, either wayside signals (mostly on the downtown subways and the Congress line) or cab signals. As far as the use of stingers, CTA has an elaborate set of instructions designed to lessen the risk in an inherently hazardous practice.
A lot of trolley lines used spring switches, which automatically favor one route but will permit a car to pass through from the other route. Frequently found at the end of the line, or at places on double track at the end of routes, where the pole(s) would have to be reversed for the return trip.
I recall, as a boy, seeing streetcar motormen throwing the single point of a facing-point turnout with a tool something like a crowbar with a long handle. This at an intersection where two routes diverged to go to separate end terminals. The matching turnout, which was always taken trailing point, didn’t even have a moveable point.
About automatic switehcers: unleass here, in Bucharest the sistem goes like this. On the wire, before the switch, an kind of slide is mounted. When the pantograph touches the slide, it operates the switch. If the controller is on 0 position or the accelaration pedal isn’t pressed, the switch remains on foward posiotion, if the controller is on 1 or 2 position, or the acceleration pedal is pressed then the switch is change for right or left direction. P.S. In Romaia most streetcars have are controling the speed with the help of a controller. The only P.C.C. type streetcars are the Chech “Tatra”.
The sistem is also used by the trolleybuses (all trolleybuses swtiches are automactly operated), only the slide construction is different. Newer trolleybuses usually don’t use the acceleration pedal to change the switch - they have an special buton for it.
. . . because I’ve never seen it asked before. Nonetheless, I’m at the point in my hobby where I’ve got to know:
How do trolleys change tracks? The lines don’t have switches. What, if anything, must the motorman do to make a trolley car, say, diverge left instead of staying on the main track?
Inquiring minds, etc. . . . - a. s.
As a technical instructor back in real life, one of my first comments to students was that the only dumb question is the one that never finds voice.
As has been mentioned in several responses, trolleys do have track switches, which are used to diverge a car onto an alternate route or line, and they function much the same way as any rail switch by guiding the wheels in the desired direction.
The track switches that are hand-thrown may use a “crankover” form of operator, but most manual track switches were set up with a toggling spring arrangement to hold the point at one position or the other, and the point was thrown over by simply prying it with the switch iron using a twisting motion. Electrical throws operated in different ways, depending on the manufacturer and the system using them. Some locales were power on for the primary route and power off for the secondary, others reversed that, still others used power off for the straight route and on for the diverging route or vice versa, some use power on the throw the switch and power off to leave it as previously set. On the conduit roads, most used a double-blade track switch with a third blade under the street slot to direct the plow to the proper line. Anywhere there was a crossing or divergence of lines, there was a short distance
Last time was in SFO LRVs and PCCs used power on to switch the points opposite. The trolly buses used one of two methods. For a long range wire switch a mark in the street would have a L (R) meaning power on would cause both wire switchs to go left (right). Once the electric poles went through the wire switches they would restore. Some drivers called it pulling the switchs. On street turns an offset pair of a u shaped contacts had to be contacted together (bus already turning) which provided power to both switches to diverge and once the poles went through they restored.
I am still pretty naive–only about five months ago did I learn that restoring “heritage” cars was an industry in itself, as opposed to rehabbing older equipment (Philadelphia’s No. 15 air-conditioned streetcar line), or buying new (as in a Siemens turnkey operation).
All these stinging and long-reach prod techniques – are they still even legal under today’s occupational safety laws?
Another question: In the future, all commuter RR cars in USA will have non-“flippable” seats, forcing at least some of the train’s passenger to ride backward if the coach is any more than half full. That’s because solid seats have been deemed to be safer and the flippers are unacceptable in new equipment.
Does that apply to LRV’s was well? If so, does it also apply to vintage? One of my earliest memories is seeing the St. Charles line conductor (New Orleans) stride down the aisle at terminus, flipping seats with great aplomb, and I’d kind of hate to see that habit made unlawful if not absolutely necessary. I guess I’m asking is, is vintage trolley/streetcar stock grandfathered out of any such safety stricture?