Enjoy the latest Trolley Dodger.

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
https://thetrolleydodger.com/2018/08/04/the-magic-of-jack-bejna/

I subscribe to this blog and I recommend it to anyone interested in traction operations.

There are some beautiful pictures here of CA&E interurbans and CTA EL cars as well as some really neat equipment from the Michigan United lines.

There are other places featured as well including Pittsburgh, PA with nice overview shot near the flood control dam. The track layout, mills, bridges, and loops reminds me of a Phil Skene route!
 
Cool ! Very interesting John thank you, I always like the dual mode with trolley pole collecting the electricity and the 3rd rail shoes, a bit dangerous in street operation but if I remember they were a similar type of suburban streetcar with trolley and 3rd rail in SF ?
 
Cool ! Very interesting John thank you, I always like the dual mode with trolley pole collecting the electricity and the 3rd rail shoes, a bit dangerous in street operation but if I remember they were a similar type of suburban streetcar with trolley and 3rd rail in SF ?

San Francisco actually uses overhead wires for their trams, but the cable cars use a chain running underneath that center slot. There's a hook coming out of the cable car that grabs the chain mechanism, which pulls the car up the hill.

There are some cities that did use the middle-rail/slot for a trolley power connection. Brooklyn and Washington DC come to mind. It was done in Washington DC to hide the ugly trolley wire.

I agree the dual powered EMUs are neat. In Boston we have the Blue Line subway, which runs with third-rail into Government Center, but switches to overhead wires when it exits the tunnel in East Boston near Logan Airport. The reason for this is due to the nearby seawater, which corrodes the third-rail. The above ground ROW was actually electrified back in the early days by the "Narrow Gauge" as it was known. The Boston, Revere Beach, and Lynn was initially a 36-inch (3 foot) gauge steam-hauled railroad, but switched to overhead catenery in the 1910s with help from GE and Westinghouse. They scrapped or sold their locomotives and put electric motors and poles on their parlor and commuter cars. (There's an idea for you!). In the early 1940s, they went out of business and in the early 1950s the MTA (now MBTA) purchased the ROW and built the Blue Line.
 
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Sorry, for the dual mode trolley I was talking about the old Sacramento Northern I forgot to mention that, interesting so I know now why the Boston blue line uses pantograph near the airport
 
Sorry, for the dual mode trolley I was talking about the old Sacramento Northern I forgot to mention that, interesting so I know now why the Boston blue line uses pantograph near the airport

Oh yeah, that!

They didn't care about that safety back when that line was in use. There was no such thing as a protected ROW or things like that. The Blue Line is really neat because of this operation, and also because the cars are a lot shorter than the normal subway cars due to the tight curve at the end and low clearance in the East Boston Tunnel, which was once built for trolley cars but later used by the BRB&L later on to get to East Boston.

The Narrow Gauge was a neat operation back in its heyday. That alone would make a nice model to build. We have existing 3ft (36 inch) equipment if we want the pre-electric era, but if we want the electrics, we would have to do some customizing like adding trolley poles to the heavyweight parlor cars, fitting headlights, and a motorman's cab on the ends. It was these heavy trains, which put them out of business because they couldn't keep up with the faster, lighter trolleys running on the competing street-running lines and a bit later the autos.

I had a nice book on the line that I picked up somewhere, but I lost it when I moved. I got it after discussing the route with my now late grandmother who used to ride the line. She paid about 25-cents for the trip each way. I also worked with someone whose grandfather worked for the company, and this guy's house used to be one of the stations along the way where it ran into Winthrop as a street running interurban. (Way cool!)

Right now there's been a discussions about reusing some of the extant ROW from the BRB&L dayd to extend the Blue Line back up to Lynn, but as you know this is still in the "study and discussion stage". They will have to do some fancy footwork in a few places because there's been a bit of encroachment by condominium developers, some roads, and shopping plazas. They would have to build the drawbridge across the Saugus River, or leave the old ROW and use part of the existing parallel commuter route for that remaining portion to Lynn. At one time that commuter line was the Eastern Railroad, which ran all the way to Portland, ME. Today it ends in Newburyport. The ROW is wide enough for this because that line was once 4-tracks wide in some places due to the old Boston and Maine (B&M) being owned by the New Haven, and the New Haven's plans to quadruple the tracks and even electrify the line like they did their own mainline from New Haven to New York City. That plan fell through in the 1910s when their owner, J.P. Morgan went broke.
 
"but as you know this is still in the "study and discussion stage"

Always the corrupt politicians and powerful automotives lobbys, I'm not surprised it's been more that 30 years that some HSL are still in project in the US and finally one is under-construction but sloooowly
 
Always the corrupt politicians and powerful automotives lobbys, I'm not surprised it's been more that 30 years that some HSL are still in project in the US and finally one is under-construction but sloooowly

Yup. Nailed it right on the head.

Much of our transit system where I live was reduced to nothing by the same lobby and crooked politicians. Many of them were paid to eliminate trolleys and commuter trains in favor of buses.
 
Same here sadly, do you believe that Paris had its 200 kilometers of tram fully dismantled and the 900 kilometers from the suburbs in 34 too thanks to the petroleum lobbies !!! And the irony is that the traffic was so bad that the tramway finally returned in 92 in the suburbs and 2006 in Paris... We have now more than 116 kilometers of tram lines and 120 more are under constructions, by the way we have a stupid type of tram which are rubber-tyred :hehe: ( 2 lines )
 
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