So far 3 peds people have been hit in its first year of operation-
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_26443465/woman-struck-killed-by-green-line-train
Since 1995 333 folks have been killled by light rail trains see-
Back in the classic trolley era 100 years ago someone came up with what I’d call a “dummy catcher.” You can see them in some old trolley photos and films, the unit looked like a net mounted at an angle to the front of the trolley. One demonstration film shows a pedestrian walking into the path of the trolley, and presto! The net pivots and picks him up of the way.
Certainly a lot less lethal than a cowcatcher.
The Transit Gloria Mundi video “Trolley- The Cars That Built Our Cities” has some footage of same.
Firelock: You are talking about an amazing invention, the “Eclipse Fender.” This fender was invented by a chap who sold it to the Cleveland Railway Company by allowing himself, in a demonstration, to be hit by a streetcar equiped with his device at increasingly higher speeds. To my knowledge Cleveland and San Francisco were the chief cities to use this remarkable and safe invention, which relied, not so much on pushing someone on the tracks out of the way, as it did on catching him safely, almost as in his mother’s arms.
How many other ‘pedestrians’ have been killed in the same period of time in ‘normal traffic’?
One of the links is to an extreme, right wing, anti-government group.
Yup thats what I meant…Now I know what the proper name of this thing a ma jig.
The Eclipse and similar fenders were widely used until the 1920s, when random pedestrian crossing (“jaywalking”) was outlawed in many cities. Some cities (Baltimore and Seattle spring to mind) made interurbans carry such fenders on city streets. At the Seashore Trolley Museum, where the shop crew has made several new replacement fenders, we have at least nine different models that have names.
The “Eclipse Fender!” So that’s what it was called.
Certainly a much more dignified name than “dummy catcher!”
Thanks for all that fascinating information everyone. And let me recommend that video I mentioned from Transit Gloria Mundi, it’s been out for a while (circa 1999) but it’s a fascinating broadcast quality show that should be of great interest to all light rail fans.
www.transitgloriamundi.com if you’re interested.
Other streetcar companies, inlcuding all operating in and around New York City, used something even better. A metalic frame or wood bar hung loosely about two inches (about 50mm) below the very front of the car. If it hit something, by trip rod connection, a large pan hinged directly in front of the wheels of the front truck, fell to the ground or street and slid along the rails or pavement (if any and higher than the rails) and scooped up the object. These were called lifesavers, and at the reasonably slow speeds involved, the worked. Los Angeles Railways used this idea to replace Eclipse Fenders on its modernized double-end lightweight cars, and used it on its PCC’s. Boston Elevated did not. Neither did the successor authorities. Also lacking were the one-man safety equipmen on the one-man Type-4 and Type-5 cars. Instead an emergency brake handle for passengers to pull hung from the center of the ceiling half-way back in the car. Be interesting to compare safety records on the passenger-mile basis, but to fair one, would have to look only the BERy’s street trackage only, since the New York City streetcars were almost entirely on street, while Boston had both the subway and PRoW, and still does. Maybe Bostonians were just more careful!
Growing up in New Orleans, I had noticed the “paper clip” under the front of the streetcars and thought they were pretty flimsy bumpers. Much later, when I read a reprint from ARM of the 1928 maintenance manual printed by NOPSI, I found out what it really was. As Dave described, it was the trigger that dropped the “basket” down to scoop up whoever or whatever was there.
This shows the “paper clip” at front of the car:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulofcov/15573946851/in/dateposted-public/
These are a drawing and a paragraph describing it:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulofcov/23099791824/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulofcov/23619394322/in/dateposted-public/
From “Street Railway Equipment” by New Orleans Public Service, Inc. reprinted by ARM in 1983.
I have seen photos of the two-part safety fender which demonstrated its workings in an extensive report by the Chicago City Railway Co. (South Side predecessor to Chicago Surface Lines) in an ad in the 1910 edition of the Chicago Daily News Year Book and Almanac.
Coorection to my posts, lifeguard, not life preserver.
Instead of a cow catcher, perhaps add a people mover. Probably not many cows to catch I hope in saint paul
Maybe they used to be. But if you’ve driven around the Hub in the last few decades you’ll have experienced that they aren’t anymore. although I would still rate Bostonians as slightly less psychotic drivers than many I’ve encountered in the NYC/North Jersey area roads in recent years…
I had forgotten how Eclipse Fenders were, well, eclipsed by the type of cow or bull catcher daveklepper refers to here. Even in Cleveland, home of the inventor (Benjamin Lev) and the eponymous manufacturing company, these hometown fenders were not installed on streetcars built (also in Cleveland by the Brill-owned G.C. Kuhlman Car Company) after about 1925, probably for aesthetic reasons. These post 1920’s Cleveland streetcars had a similar type of bar-and-pan device to the one daveklepper refers to. If you want to smile, imagine an Eclipse Fender being installed on a shiny new PCC car about 1946! Not a great look.
Nevertheless, if I were to imagine being struck by a streetcar I’d much rather be collected safely by an Eclipse Fender than made to roll on the ground under a moving streetcar until I was shoveled into a dirty and rusty pan.
St Paul blue line hit another person this past monday