An attempt at posting a photo of an alumnum 551-600 series Peter Witt 1938-built double-end lightweight at 73rd and Broadway
Discovered something new that might be of value to others. I need not use another website to post photographs. I have two email addresses, and if I send a photo from my daveklepper@yahoo.com address to my gmail address, the photo appears without my having to download it. I can then copy the photo with the appropriate Windows 7 (I have upgraded from XP, but 10 does not seem available with Hebrew for my computer at this time) and post it like copied text.
So here above is what was my favorite streetcar type.
Adn here is the steel version, series 601-625, earlier paint scheme, at Columbus Circle
The aluminum series was scrapped, since the aluminum was valuable. But the steel cars had a second life in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There they were made single-end with three doors on one side.
Correction. I was mistaken about the three doors, apparently. But while in Manhattan they were conduit only cars, as single-enders in Sao Paulo they had one trolley pole each.
Most TARS-TATS home-built lightweights were not Peter Witts but had a double door at front and a single door at rear (both sides double ended and right-handed), with construction permitting easy conversion of the single rear door to double, which was done in Vienna. 626-685, of which 626-645 were originally conduit, were the newest series. 629 was converted to trolley pole the summer of 1947, but went to Vienna in 1949, served on the Florisdorf lines with pantograph there, and came back to the USA for the Shore Line Trolley Museum, Branford Electric Ry. Assoc, in 1967. Here is a night photograph on the Farm River trestle.
Bob Marcus was a TARS-TATS operator, went to LA to run streetcars there when all Bronx lines were bus in 1948, came back to NY to drive busses after LA went all-bus, and was often my operating partner at the museum. 629 was our favorite car. He passed on early summer 1996, about the time I moved to Israel. I observed his Yartzeit-Nahalla this past Sabbath at the Yeshiva with the required prayers after my receiving the 7th Aliya to the Torah in his honor. From Israel, I was able to help raise the money for his gravestone at the Mt. Ricihmond Cemetary, Staten Island.
But the photo is better in color. Glad I found the color version:
The photos don’t come through for me but would love to see them.
What operating system do you use? Does anyone but me see the photos as posted? Possibly if I learn what the operatinig sysems are of those who can see the photos and those that don’t I’d be able to figure out a fix.
I am using Windows Seven Hebrw-English, with Yahoo and Gmail. My server at the Yeshiva is Bezek, the national telephone company and only restricted bandwidth is provided. All the recent photo posting has been using those providers. Occasionally I use the Hebrew U. Mt. Scopus guest wifi, and then I can open the dvds on other material others post on this Forum.
Tried posting with Imgur and editing. Let me know if this works for you. Thanks.
I can see your photos just fine David, and they’re fascinating. My mother’s a New York City girl and remembers the trolleys and always said they were fun to ride. She and many of her friends were sorry to see them go.
She remembers the double-decker buses too, (The Brits weren’t the only ones who had 'em, folks!) and said they were fun too in nice weather, but that’s another story.
They’re coming through fine now.
Double deckers were built by 5th ave in NYC and Chicago Motor Coach in Chicago. Eventually all production seemed to be concentrated at Yellow. Yellows were used in NYC and Chicago, but there are photos of them in Philly, St.Louis and LA. One of the LA buses ended up in Mexico as a rail bus.
Double decker buses are common in Berlin.
Remember that the typical British tram was a double-decker, and the heritage fleet at Blackpool provides a transit service somewhat like the F and E lines in SF. In fact, some of the “balloons,” post WWII streamlined double-deckers, suppliment the modern articulated light rail cars when demand gets heavy in regular service there.
The New York City Transit Authority has one 1938-era closed Double-deck Yellow Coach from Fifth Avenue Coach Lines that is used for nostalgia trips now and then. But none of the older open-tops so popular in summer were saved, as far as I know.
The Fifth Avenue Coach Company was also a GM subsidiary. Fare was a dime, not like the nickel for the other buses and streetcars and subways. And they would not pick you up if all seats were taken. And they were two-men, driver and conductor. There were only about six or seven routes, all using Fifth Avenue downtown, except the two crosstown routes, 72nd and 57th Streets. 57th was straight-forward, east and west on 57th. But 72nd was unusual. Started at 72nd and Central Park West, ran west to Broadway, down Broadway to 57th, east on Broadway to Fifth Avenue, north on 5th to 72nd, and then east on 72nd to York Avenue beyond 1stt Avenue. I wonder if the M72, if that is what it is called, does that today? Probably not, with a unified system, logically east from Riverside Drive to Central Park West, then down to 57th and then east.
You will see a Fifth Avenue double-decker in “The Godfather” where Clemenza and the traitorous Paulie look for apartments so the crew can take to the mattresses. This is the scene just prior to, “leave the gun, take the cannoli.”
When I was a kid in second grade in Amityville there was a class trip to Adventurer’s Drive Inn in Farmingdale, Long Island. A.D.I. was a combination restaurant and amusement park on route 110. We went there in a Fifth Avenue bus that was owned by a guy named Jerry Bornschwar (sp?) funny what you can remember from 1962!
Fifth Ave Coach became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Omnibus Corporation which was owned by John Hertz, GM never had an interest.
John did sell partial interest in his Bus building business Yellow Coach (derived from the FACC and CMC efforts) to GM as well as his car rental business. GM eventually purchased the remainder of Hertz’s interrest in Yellow and changed the name to GM.
Omnibus corporation purchase
I don’t think you are completely accurate on this. GM was involved some way or another. It may have simple been a loan to Herz. It may have been personal involvement by Sloan or Kettering. My understanding is the management of Fifth Avenue Coach was also involved in the Chicago Motor Coach bus system that competed with Chicago Surface Lines and also ran double-deckers identicle to those in New York. And Fifth Avenue used the same color scheme as New York Omnibus, and its subsidiaries, Madison Avenue Coach and Eighth Avenue Coach. All bought only Yellow Coaches, except for one White each for Fifth Avenue and for New York Omnibus. Fifth Avenue ran single-level coaches only on its two crosstown line only. All other routes were double-deck lines. I think the two crosstowns were one-man but still charged the dime fare. Don’t remember the standee policy for them. But no standees on the double-deck north-south routes, all of which used Fifth Avenue down to Washington Square south of 57th Street.
Fifth Avenue’s management also assisted New York Omnibus in the conversion from New York Railways streetcar system. This may have been purely informal.
And Hong Kong operates double-deck single-truck streetcars. Some, or at least one, air-conditioned!
i’ve never seen any evidence of GM involvement in the Omnibus corporation owner of both FAAC and CMC as well as other properties. Even in articles in Motor Coach Age written by Transit history experts with far better credentials than you or I.
Somewhere in here we will find the actual relationship.
See article in the July 8th, 1925 New York Times, for example.
As I understand it, the link is more between Ritchie and Green and the manufacturing part of the Fifth Avenue company … Green having left, gone to take over in Chicago, then coming back in when Hertz et al. took over Fifth Avenue to form Omnibus … and not involving GM management of the bus companies themselves (I believe Omnibus then had Chicago, New York, and St. Louis service running). I don’t believe GM at that time had interest in running actual services; they only wanted the expert distinctive competence of the design and construction ‘divisions’. Note that this is almost a decade before Austin and the angle drive/monocoque body buses would so revolutionize the industry and, not incidentally, make NCL such a ‘winning’ proposition for GM and others from the late '30s on.
I was going through that article and…
“Gasolene-electric omnibuses.”
Interesting. Looks like someone was using hybrid vehicles commercially long before it was cool!
I wonder if they got the idea from the French St. Chamond tank of World War One?