RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.
THE PCC PAGE
"Todd's"
Trolley
Arrives In Baltimore
SEPTA #2728
3/23/06
Also - 2160 Arrives in Baltimore on Monday, 3/27/06
Late last summer, I was
down at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.....
Several people were talking about a couple of PCC cars that "we" had purchased from
SEPTA,
One of them was already on the property, #2187, which SEPTA had used as a maintenance car,
As the conversation progressed.....
They joked about getting "the rest" of the cars that SEPTA had up for
disposition,
The price was right, only $200....
The only drawback was the cost of moving them!
When I said I would sponsor one, they laughed at me..... until I put my money where my mouth was,
Ever since they have been calling it Todd's Trolley (or is it folly, I can't
remember),
So....... that was about 7 months
ago,
I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to see the thing,
Maybe it was a clever ruse to get my money,
But lo and behold, I got a couple of calls and John and Ed said it would be
arriving tomorrow morning,
So I called in to work and said I would be late (real late) and went down to help unload the thing,
The unloading went smoothly, and we were out of there by 2pm (we started a
little after 11am).
The streetcar is actually in
pretty good shape,
There's a little bit of body rust...... one day of work should take care of
that!
And it's in need of a good paint job,
But, at least it was put onto the trailer under its own power!
I know that some are distraught over the invasion of the Philly PCC Cars,
But 20 - 30 - 50 years from now, people won't much care, they'll just be glad we
saved what we did.
Please note: this is not my "personal" streetcar, it does belong to the
museum, they just call it "mine".
For those not familiar....
PCC Car stands for Presidential Conference Committee Car,
Back in 1929, a number of transit systems got together in a national conference
to try to do two things: 1) To keep people out of the automobile, thereby riding
the transit systems, and 2) Design a new, modern streetcar that was comfortable
and had quick pick-up. Just under 5000 PCC cars were built by Brill and
the St. Louis Car Co between the early 30's and the 50's. Baltimore and
Philadelphia had the largest order between '36 and '45, with 1586 cars....
Brooklyn gets credit for the smallest order with a quantity of 1!
For more info on the Philly cars, check out the Railway Preservation News story about the infiltration of Philly cars into a once all Baltimore collection.... http://www.rypn.org/RyPN/briefs/viewbriefs.asp?filename=050912030459.txt
Thanks to Charles Plantholt for the additional pictures!
Before I get into the pictures, here's a few links you might be interested in covering PCC Cars:
http://world.nycsubway.org/us/pcc/
Very good online history of the PCC Car with links
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/trolleydriver/girard.htm
Page covering the newly refurbed SEPTA Girard Ave PCC Cars
http://www.btco.net/models/
John Engleman imports some pretty spiffy models of PCC Cars... I have one, pix
to follow....
http://www.trolleystop.com/pcccar.htm
Little bit of PCC history
http://www.bera.org/articles/newpcc27.html
"Newark" #27 arrives at Shore Line Trolley Museum (East Haven CT)
The photo at the top of the page was taken in Philadelphia last August (prior to a fan trip aboard #2333).
A couple of more shots of the car
after the fan trip.
The driver backed the truck
down from Maryland Ave, about 4 blocks away from here... the guy is good!
Another view of 2728 on the
trailer, in front of the museum...
The B&O (CSX) runs over "us" on the bridge in the background.
2728 and the truck.
Another shot of 2728 from the other
end. Photo by Charles
Plantholt
The driver backed up (with
very, very little help), in one shot, to perfect alignment,
Dodging a fire hydrant, phone pole, and guy wires with only inches to spare at
the tractor,
Ed and Charles check out the situation to see what we need to bridge the gap.
Charlie will have an article in an upcoming issue of the Baltimore NRHS
newsletter, the Interchange.
Ready to come off the low-boy.
Photos by Charles Plantholt
100 miles down, 18 inches to go!
Photo by Charles Plantholt
Clever adapters took care of
bridging that 18" span between the trailer and the storage track.
Here I am, goofing off while everyone else is working!
Ed and Buster using a stinger
to power 2728, so it can move under it's own power.
Well, we couldn't get 2728 to
move under it's own power, so we pulled it off with our tractor-backhoe.
(we found out on Saturday, that the
reason for 2728 not wanting to move under it's own power on this end of the
trip, was a door interlock switch SEPTA had installed, plus you had to have the
"secret" sequence to energize the thing - now that we have "run" the car on this
short piece of track, it will be used to pull the last Philly car coming down on
Monday, off the trailer.... hopefully Charles will be there to get more pix!)
There I am, finally doing something useful.
Photo by Charles Plantholt
One truck off the trailer!
Photo by Charles Plantholt
Safely resting on the
temporary storage track, we can now all rest,
(except for the trucking crew, they had to head back to Philly),
The building off to the left is an old freight shed that once belonged to the
Maryland & Pennsylvania RR (M&Pa).
#2187 sits a little further
away from the M&Pa Freight Shed, along Falls Rd.
As we were leaving, CSX's
southbound trash train goes by, with a pair of new 5300's on the lead.
SEPTA PCC #2333, before going out on the fan trip.
If you love streetcars, this is a
great place to be, the SEPTA Elmwood shops off Island Avenue in south Philly,
John Engleman pointed out that two of these cars are now in Baltimore, and asks
when will the other two show up?
(In due time, I suppose)
I would like to thank Charles Plantholt for all of these pictures, as I could not get the day off.
Moving 2160 into place for
unloading, just missed that hydrant again....
Lining up the rails.
2160 waits on the trailer.
2728 with towbar in place.
2728 getting into position to couple
up to 2160.
Three former SEPTA PCC's #2187,
2160, and 2728.
First truck almost off the trailer!
One truck down, one to go.
We're off the trailer.... Job well
done!
John moves 2728 to the end of the
(short) track as Chris watches on.
2728 parked at the end of the
temporary track.
"Two car train" - 2728 and 2160.
7407
The Last PCC Car To Run In Baltimore
7407 rounding the
curve at the M&Pa warehouse, on it's way back to the Visitor's Center.
Pictures by Charles Plantholt
MOD 10-6-2006