BOWSER TO COMPLETLY REDESIGN THEIR TRACTION POWER UNIT
TROLLEYVILLE VISITS EAST PENN TRACTION MEET
Trolleyville was represented for the first time at the recent East Penn Traction Meet in Pennsauken, New Jersey. This premier traction meet is held every odd year in late April, early June and features operating trolley cars and interurban electric railway vehicles all running from a live overhead wire. The Who’s Who in this portion of the model railroading are always in attendance.
For the past several years, the meet has been held at the South Jersey Expo Center, which has an ideal facility for this event. There is plenty of parking available and loading and unloading for the vendors is easily accessible. The schedule of events started with set up on Friday, April 30 beginning at noon with the public being allowed in from 600 to 900 P.M. On Saturday, May 1st at 900 A.M., the show resumed until teardown begins at 830 P.M.. All modules and visitors must exit the hall by 11:00 P.M.. On Sunday there is usually a fan trip on one of the many traction lines that still operate in the area.
This year saw the following dealers, among others attend. MTS Imports, Inc., (brass) The Car Works (brass), Q-Car Company (Traction supplies), Tom O’ Toole (Traction supplies of all types and gauges), Kevin T. Farrell (Books/videos), Trolley Talk (Traction magazine), Custom Traxx (Traction decals), and Richard Orr (HO scale girder rail). It was rewarding to see both Richard and his wife Martha at this show. Richard was very seriously ill at the time of the 1997 show and due to his excellent physical condition and strong will, he was able to make it back to health and put his business back in production.
Also, there were operating traction modular layouts from ‘N’ to ‘G’ and larger scales. There are workshops and clinics given throughout Friday evening and all day Saturday.
This year was no exception as far as a fan trip was concerned. This meet’s fan trip featured the 1926 Peter Witt Car, 8534 along with the 1948 PCC Car, #2168. This trip began at 1000 A.M. at Elmwood Car House with a backdrop of 1980 Kawasaki cars, believed by the writer to be one of the finest vehicles designed since the PCC Car. This trip covered portions of routes 36 (Elmwood Ave.), 11(Woodland Ave.) along with two trips through the surface car subway, 10 (Lancaster Ave.), the diversion trackage which used to be parts of Routes 14 (abandoned 1948) and 40 (abandoned 1955), Routes 15, and portions of former Route 41, abandoned in 1957. The trip ended about 430 P.M. after a great day of riding.
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FIRST UPDATE IN ALMOST 50 YEARS
On Thursday, April 29 and Friday, April 30, Custom Traxx, represented by George and Anne Huckaby were guests of Lee English of Bowser. During that visit, the drawings of the long rumored updated traction power units were reviewed and the actual molds for the gear boxes and the drive shafts were seen. After almost 50 years, the traction drives used in the four Bowser trolley cars are going to be updated and modernized. It appears that the first castings will be made by the end of May.
These new power chassis will feature horizontal can motors and eight wheel electrical pickup. As currently planned to be manufactured, the Brill Suburban, the PCC Streamlined Trolley and the Indiana Railroad Lightweight Interurban should be able to easily negotiate curves with radius’ of less than 6 inches and the LVT Jewett will be able to negotiate curves of slightly less than 9 inch radius. The present sideframes will be offered along with a PCC track brake sideframe which is a fair representation of the prototype. In order to keep the unit price as low as possible, the basic power unit will probably not include a flywheel and the Ready-To-Run (RTR) cars will now sport dummy trolley poles. Most modelers who want a trolley line on their model railroads will not erect overhead wire. However, operational poles will be available separately along with a flywheel retrofit kit for the advanced modeler.. These are sound business decisions that could allow have completely finished, good running, RTR HO scale trolley cars on the market for less than $125.00 each.
All four trolley body castings must be changed to permit the new chassis to be fastened to the ends of the bodies The new power chassis will be adaptable to the current trolley shells as Bowser intends to have a retrofit kit available. Also the long obsolete provision for a headlight jewel will be replaced by a prototype sized opening to provide for an illuminated headlight.
On Friday, April 30, Custom Traxx had the privilege to attend one of the weekly meetings between Lew English, the founder of Bowser Manufacturing, Lee English, who basically is in charge of Production Operations and the mold maker, Ron Boyer, who has a list of great successes to his name including the Bowser PRR N5c cabooses, X-32 Box cars and H-21 hoppers.
Bowser is pursuing the goal of providing ready-to-run, finished Brill Suburban Cars and PCC Streamline trolley cars at prices comparable to other quality ready to run locomotives. This would provide an excellent starting point for those new traction modelers. Currently, most traction modelers must know how to paint their own models, convert them to overhead operation and hang overhead wire prior to enjoying the hobby. These new Bowser cars would allow quality interim two-rail operation while the neophyte learns the many skills needed for successful overhead wire operation. In pursuit of this goal, Bowser has requested for and received much paint data and photos on PCC cars from the libraries of Custom Traxx, Andy Maginnis, local Philadelphia Traction historian, and others.
So keep your eyes on the model railroad and traction magazines. Two magazines that Trolleyville recommends that you scan frequently are Rail Line News and Trolley Talk. Custom Traxx hopes to have a pilot sample of the new power chassis for testing in the not-too distant future. We will evaluate the entire power chassis and let you know how it operates. For any more information no this subject contact Custom Traxx at 310-475-5597 or E-mail at traxx@earthlink.net.
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