For those Traction fans here's a nice blog. The Trolley Dodger

[JCitron]

This blog has an awesome historic photo collection of various trolley operations around US and Canada. I've subscribed to the newsletter and enjoy perusing the pics.


https://thetrolleydodger.com/2018/02/04/a-traction-photo-album-part-1/

https://thetrolleydodger.com/2018/02/07/a-traction-photo-album-part-2/

https://thetrolleydodger.com/2018/05/31/a-traction-photo-album-part-3/

The site not only has info and pics of trolleys (trams), it also has pics and stuff on electric engines including GG1s, AEM-7s, E60s, and others.

 

[MF01]

Thanks for the links as we can see the huge differences between the past and present in transportation there and mostly from the huge trolley disappearance

 

[JCitron]

I think too that the equipment in the past had a personality and style all of its own that was also representative of that railroad. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, for example, had those heavyweight electric motors and trailers built in 1930. They were the moniker of the DL&W, outside of their famous named-trains to the Poconos Mountain resorts and to Scranton, PA. The Pennsylvania Railroad too had their GG1s and other locomotives, such as their K4 Pacific locomotives, which said "Pennsy" right on them without needing to read the lettering. There are so many companies and equipment like that including the New Haven, New York Central, and others.

The problem now is the equipment is pretty much off the shelf from the manufacturer. A commuter railroad, for example, goes to Bombardier and purchases a Desiro train set and puts their name and paint scheme on it. There is little other customization done, and there's very little outside work done at the railroad's own workshops.

The old tram/trolley companies purchased their equipment from the car builders in their day such as St. Louis, Brill, and others, or in some cases the companies also built their own home brew and in the end we had 100s of different designs all of which represented the railroad or tram system they ran on.

 

[jeffmorris]

John, Thank you very much for the photos of old

equipment. I think that one of the photos IDs a wrong make of a city bus as

D40LF bus #8043 at Darby, PA in 1992, not a GMC/Nova/MCI RTS bus.​

​

 

[rjhowie]

Puzzled.

Why are American electric overhead poles and wiring so high up. Our here in GB run fine and a lot lower!