Al writes...
I was able to make it out to IRM on both Wed and Thur. Wednesday was slightly shortened due to evening commitments. Many of the folks that were out were engaged in inspecting freight cars for use in the freight trains that will be operated in conjunction with diesel days this weekend.
I resumed work on the door from the 36. On Wednesday I was able to get all the metal parts off the door and most were wire wheeled to get the paint and 100+ years of crud off of them. I also got most of the paint stripped off the wood.
Taking a walk around the property I found that the Cleveland RTA PCC, 63, was out in the open with its tarp having been removed. This car is significant in that it represents the only "conventional" PCC in the collection. All of the others have some nonstandard feature of one sort or another (this includes the other Cleveland PCC which was built by Pullman rather than St. Louis). Here are a couple of detail photos to illustrate a couple of the unique operational characteristics of the former Shaker Heights system.
It would be very nice to see this cars restored as Twin Cities Rapid Transit as #352.
4 comments:
Just wanted to mention that the SHRT ex TCRT PCC car is almost but not quite a "standard" PCC car. It is 108" wide, while the "standard" PCC car was 100" wide. That is why the TCRT cars were not bought by Toronto & Philadelphia, the two buyers of the most number of secondhand PCC's. They wouldn't fit.
Artschwartz
From what I understand, the 108" width PCC car was one of the three "standard" widths brought out by St. Louis Car Company for the 1946 design "standard" PCC car. While wider than a Philly car, it was not a custom width. I believe Los Angeles also used the wide cars. St. Louis also had wide cars, but the body design was an odd hodgepodge of pre and post war design.
Were the CTA 'Green Hornets' like 4391 108" also? I had heard that they ordered them with the trucks offset to allow for extra width without sideswiping one another on tracks in the center of the streets.
Mike Gorecki
The 4391 is listed in the database as 108" wide; the prewar PCC and the Pullmans are 105", which doesn't seem like much of a difference. Most of the older cars seem to be slightly narrower. My next questions would be what was the standard CSL track spacing, and how much separation was thought necessary.
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