Scranton, PA, 1949 - 1950

Beautiful! The one of car 509 in front of Thompson’s Pharmacy looks like it was posed by Link! [:D][tup]

David, seriously, is there anyplace you haven’t been?

Great shot, loved them all! A good look at a saner time, that’s for certain!

All I can Dave is WOW! Thanks for giving us a new look back on main street street caring. Happy New Year and keep on posting!

Fintlock, to read and view great photos of someone who has been far more streetcar-frienndly places than I have been, visit the Trains Transit Forum, and pull up my postings on Jack May’s visits.

Thanks David, I’ll do that, but I still find it hard to believe someone’s been to more rail action sites than you have!

Seems to me you started at the “American Railroads” display at the 1939 Worlds Fair and haven’t stopped since!

David, I’m sure you remember the O&W. When I began my seminary studies in 1972, there were still traces of it in Carbondale, about 15-20 miles north of Scranton. Recent trips show that just about eveything is gone. You probably know that Carbondale wouldn’t let the O&W build through the town, so they built over the town! A Carbondale restaurant that my late wife and I used to frequent back in the day, was the old station.

I probably did see the restaurant, but 70 years is a long time to remember the ispecifics. station/

Another thread has a picture or two at the D&H Carbondale. Still had passenger service to and from Scranton in 1950.

Having reread my post,I realize, David, that I didn’t acurately write what i meant to say. I was fishing around for your memories of the O&W itself. I wouldn’t expect you to remember about that restaurant either. I am sure by 1950, the O&W DIDN’T have passenger service on the Scranton division. I have the one book on that line in my library. The late Jim Shaughnessy got some nice pictures of the line shortly before it sut down for good in 1957. They were in CT sometime in the last decade.

Excerpt from Email receoved:

Richard Allman

The photo that Rich mentioned that I had not posted, car 401 turning onto Lackawanna Avenue from?:

southsideTwo from December, 1949. Southsid Line :

Why does 401 have both poles up?

Mark

It’s “changing ends” with the operator moving to controls on the other end. The second pole is raised first so that pulling the first pole off the wire won’t create an arc, which the current drawn by lights, heat or the compressor would cause even with the motors shut off.

Answering your question: Because it’s the line’s terminal, and the operator is in the process of “changinhg ends.”

You can watch this pocedure in most trolley miseums, those that don’l, like Baltimpre, have loops at both ends or just run on a distirted circle.

The operator brings the car to a stop with a regular smooth service braking application and the front-right door open, He then applies full baking effort. He moves the revesal key to the nuetral postition, then exits via the front right door and raises the pole. which was at the front and will be at the rear.

He reboards the car and removes the reverse key, and in some cases the brake handle as well. He shuts the right-front door without releasing the brake. He carries the “hardware” to the other end of the car, and as he walks down the center aisle, he flips the backs of the reversable seats.

At the new front end, he inserts the hardware, leaving the brakes applied and the reverse key in neutral and opens what is now the front right door. He exits, pulls down and secures what was the pole at the rear, reboards the car, and moves the reverse key to forward. After boarding passengers and collecxting or checking fares, he closes the door, releases the brakes and advances the controller.

The reverser kry can be removed only in the neutral position, and the brake handle or pedel only in the full-application positionh.

Note location correction on the previous posting.

Thanks for the much more complete sequence.

Most brake handles come off in “lap” or the position between release and apply where no air is moving. On some older cars the controller handle itself gets moved to the other end.

The reverser “key” has three positions, forward, off, and reverse. The controller handle can only be moved with the key in the forward or reverse position.

What you posted seems contrary to both maximnum safety and my own experience in operating cars at Shore Line Trolley and (foot pedal) at Third Avenue.

On the Connecticut Company opens and Brooklyn convertable 4573, removing the controlkler handle did not relate mechanically to the position of the reverser. But we were instructed to put the reverser in neutral first.

Of course the reverse key could not be moved from one position to another, unless the controller itself was in the “off” (no pwer) position.

What you describe seems accuratee for some or most one-man cars with self-laspping hand-control brakes.

Branford’s (SLT’s) Johnstown 357 was the car I would rarely run of that type.

The opens were two-man cars, and did not self-lkapping brakes.

Ditto for 4573, but we always ran it safely as a one-man car.

Also, my description of changing ends applies to streetcars having only straight-air air-brakes. The brake handles directly operate valves admitting air from the air-tank to the brake cylinders, similarly Third vAvenue’s and Omaha’s foot=prdel, raised to apply and depressed completely to release.

For cars equipped for MU. obviously the brake handle must be in neutral when removed, or “pumping-up” when putting the car back into service would be complicated, because of the reduction in train-line pressure means brake application. Thereis no train-line pipe with straight-air, single-car operation.

RC is correct about the hardware of the Scranton carsm

Straight-air d9ouble-endone pipe from the air-tank to the brake cylinders, or in parallel with separate pipes for each of the two valves. The fitst case requires that the valve be open, brakes fully applied, before the handle is removed, while the second requires thec valve to be closed m the neutral position/ Self=lapping streetcar brake systems were mostly of the second type, so RC is correct.