April 2002
March Traction Action
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Orange Empire Railroad Museum Winter Swap Meet *** George Huckaby - It was March and time for the semi-annual swap
meet on the serene grounds of the Orange Empire Railway Museum. Each winter
and fall, the museum opens its picnic area to model railroaders to conduct
this fun event. Although the museum opens at 9:00 AM to the general public
and 7:00 AM to the show members. Vendors began lining up before 5:00 AM, eager
to get the best positions.
An amazing transformation takes place between 6:59
AM and 9:00. At first. It is perfectly quiet except for the chirping of
birds, then the vendors rush in at 7:00AM and there are cars, pick-ups and
minivans all over the place. By 9:00 there is a line of public equal to the
line that the vendors formed almost four hours earlier. Books, brass models,
and photographs abound and bargains can be found everywhere. Mark your
calendar for the fall show. I never miss it! _________________________________________ Cow Palace Great American Train Show *** George Huckaby - Being March, it was also time for the annual
Great American Train Show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. On March 9th
and 10th, Bay Area model train lovers gathered to try and find
bargains again. From the looks of the
crowd, most were successful. Custom Traxx, Holland Traction Supply and
Railway/Traction Miniatures, LTD represented Trolleyville.
Custom
Traxx was displaying the latest Corgi PCC cars decorated for Capital Transit
(Washington DC) and New Jersey Transit (Newark, NJ). They also operated one
of the Southern California Traction Clubs modules. In the picture below,
Sacramento Northern 129 is on the loop track while Muni PCCs 1061 (Pacific
Electric), 1057 (Cincinnati), 1051 (San Francisco) and Pacific Electric 544
are on Main Street.
As
is usually the case, the younger railfans play with the Big Fun Railroad
which is there just for them.
Going
to San Francisco for this show is always fun for a trolley fan. There is
another show in August this year so plan to be there, if you can! While in San Francisco, go downtown and
ride the F line out to Fisherman's Wharf.
They have 14 to 17 vehicles on the line most of the time, so also
bring your camera. Take the K line
out to Franciscan Hobbies. You will spend more time there than you think so
allow for it. Don't forget the cable car museum and the Market Street Railway
facility at Market and Duboce, at the Mint. All of these places are worth the
trip for any trolley fan! |
New Large Scale Traction Products Shown in San Francisco *** George Huckaby - An entire new line of large
scale traction items were displayed at the San Francisco Great American Train
Show by Karl Johnson of Model Trolley Systems USA.
Karl
demonstrated a complete line of large scale overhead wire components
including hangers, line poles, wire frogs (both left and right hand) wire crossings; and parts such as brake
valves, controllers, footboards, pilots and other underbody parts as shown
below:
His
two demonstrated trolley poles were a sight to behold. He also had examples of his power and
trailing trucks with the Brill 77E powered and trailing trucks in the
foreground of the next photo. The
cover of his catalogue shows a beautiful ten window box type semi-convertible
trolley shown below:
The
car was made from two Bachmann single truck closed cars with parts from Model
Trolley Systems, USA added and the results are remarkably similar to the
Third Avenue Railway Systems 701-850 class cars. At the same show, he also
demonstrated some of his large-scale traction trucks, and a gas-electric
fashioned largely from a Bachmann coach.
Large scale traction could be interesting combined with on-board sound
systems. Stay tuned! ------------------------------------------------------------ Another Streetcar for Muni After hearing rumors of same, early Sunday
morning, March 10th, we found former New Jersey Transit PCC car 14
at the Geneva facility sitting next to Muni 1056, ex Philadelphia 2113, which
had been involved in an "unfortunate incident" at Pier 39.
Car
#14 is leased to San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) and the Muni brass is
evaluating the purchase of more of these cars. The main thrust right now is
to get ten of one type of car and efforts are being made to re-acquire more
of the former San Francisco Baby Ten, series 1016-1040 class cars. ------------------------------------------------------------ New
Trolleyville Editor *** George Huckaby - In order to give the Trolleyville Times the
capability to react quickly to the many traction related happenings in the
Southern California area and report them to you, Trolleyville has acquired a
local editor, Adam Gu.
Adam
is a graduate of Alhambra High School and holds BS in Computer Information
Systems from Cal Sate LA. He will be familiarizing himself with the world of
present and past electric railways. He spent a Saturday this month at the
Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA enjoying the history of Southern
California electric railways. Since late January, he has taken over most of
the duties formerly accomplished by Darin Volpe of Computer 76 in Atascadero,
CA. Darin was the original creator of
Trolleyville back in 1997. If you
like Trolleyville and are driving up Highway 101 in California, take the
Atascadero "Traffic Way" exit and proceed one block east. Computer
76 is on the north side of the street at 5820 Traffic Way. Tell Darin how much you like his creation.
Meanwhile, he can answer most of your PC problems. He has always answered
most of ours |
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