Friday, July 20, 2012

A DOOR able

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.

Thursday was spent finishing up the stripping and sanding down all of the wood.  I was surprised to see that some of the interior (to the door that is) wood had never seen a coat of paint.  I was then able to get both sides of the door painted in red primer.

Randy was busy sanding and priming some of the windows that have been waiting for attention.

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.  
The fare collection is unique in that fares are collected on boarding on the outbound (eastbound) trip, so it is enter at front.  On the reverse trip fares are collected when alighting, hence center entrance boarding on westbound.

The inner part of this operation operates over the rapid transit so the PCCs were equipped with trip stops.  The application looks a little basic but I guess it gets the job done.





 It would be very nice to see this cars restored as Twin Cities Rapid Transit as #352.
 
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 21, 2012 at 7:44 AM

    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

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  2. David WilkinsJuly 24, 2012 at 11:53 AM

    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.

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  3. AnonymousJuly 24, 2012 at 3:59 PM

    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

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  4. Randall HicksJuly 26, 2012 at 7:10 PM

    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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