April 2010
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April 2010 |
Another Fun Show in Bakersfield, CA ! Once each year now in March, the Golden Empire Historical and Modeling Society hosts a train show at the Fairgrounds in Bakersfield, CA. They also have an open house at their fine layout at 19th and Eye Streets on the Saturday evening of the show. Trolleyville has been regularly attending this show for many years. This year's feature, of course were the recently received Bowser F-line PCC cars. These cars are bringing more trolley fans out of the "closet" as several cars were sold there during the show.
This show follows the example set by much bigger shows by having a public riding train pulled by engines that cost over $13,000 to acquire.
Since Custom Traxx owner George Huckaby is a member of the golden Empire Historical and Modeling Society, he gets to run his trains during the Saturday Open House. This year George brought his Broadway Limited PRR T-1 and Paragon PRR Q2 for operation. A good time was had by all. Custom Traxx may be a trolley vendor but they have an extensive PRR HO train collection of steam, diesel and electric locomotives, eleven of which are equipped with DCC decoders.
Of course, we doubt if the Pennsy ever hauled coal with a T1 but it sure looked impressive. But the Q-2 took over quickly for most of the run.
A major draw at the show was the Custom Traxx display with several F-line PCC cars, converted to run on overhead wire with Miniatures by Eric HT-P2 poles, operating throughout the show, demonstrating the interior lights and the brake light features of the M4T decoder. Meanwhile, Muni PE car 1061 meets SEPTA car 2095, which was created from an undecorated 12549 F-line PCC. We understand that the 2095 may be an example of the next Bowser PCC car.
Angels Flight Returns ! After what seemed like an eternity of bureaucratic bunging and finger pointing. early in the morning of March 15, 2010, the shortest railway in the world, the famed Angels Flight funicular, located in downtown Los Angeles, California returned to service after a multi-year absence. For more information on the history of the line, built in 1901, click here!
The fare is still 25 cents and is collected at the top of the hill. One can also obtain five rides for $1.00 as the ride seems to be over so quickly. The interior of both cars consist of seats along a flight of stairs.
When you get to the top of the hill and pay your 25 cent fare, you will pass a plaque erected in 1952. [See Angels Flight, col. 2] |
Trolleyville returns to the Cow Palace in San Francisco! With the arrival of the first of the new Bowser F-line PCC cars in a San Francisco scheme, car 1050, Trolleyville scheduled a return to one of their favorite locations, the Cow Palace in Daly City (just south of San Francisco) on February 27-28, 2010.
Unfortunately, the cars did not arrive at Bowser until Monday, February 22nd so there was not enough time to get them to the West Coast prior to this show. Fortunately, one example of each PCC car was available for customer inspection.
From left to right are 1052 Los Angeles, 1058 Chicago, 1057 Cincinnati, 1063 Baltimore, 1061 Pacific Electric and 1055 Philadelphia-PTC. On the turntable are 1059 Boston and 1050 San Francisco-1950s. The remaining cars, 1051 San Francisco-1960s, 1053 Brooklyn, 1054 Philadelphia-PRT, 1056 Kansas City, 1060 Newark and 1062 Louisville should be available this summer. Also, this summer, there should be an announcement of Bowser's next trolley. Trolleyville's last visit to the Cow Palace was in March 2003. It had been one of our favorites for many years and for many reasons including the proximity to the now famous F-line. But it had to be eliminated due to the gross mismanagement of this venue after the Great American Train Show was sold in October 2001. They just continued to refuse to expend the resources to properly advertise the show and it just became uneconomically feasible to visit anymore. Of course under the competent management of the Great Train Expo folks, the show is slowly regaining some of its former luster. With an advertising budget of almost $17,000, which involved two major newspapers (San Francisco Chronicle and San Mateo Times), direct mail contacts, full page ads in model Railroader and Classic Toy Trains, emailing past attendees twice and an extensive PR campaign, this show brought out as many people as could be expected considering the current state of the U.S. economy and the "monsoon-like" rains that came though the area on Friday afternoon during vendor set-up. By the way all this advertising data is provided in writing to each and every vendor scheduled to appear at the show. Despite the threatening skies, the crowd really arrived just after the show opened and by 11:00 A.M., there were plenty visitors in the three halls, (D-E-F). We did have some observations after our absence. It was obvious that the number of active model railroaders visiting the show were drastically reduced. The majority of the attendees were families with children and our discussions with them revealed a desire to do "something" with model trains but they could not decide just what. The reaction to the eight San Francisco F-line cars was overwhelming. Had any vendor had the San Francisco Muni F-line 1050 car at the show, they would have sold a few. But those cars did not arrive at Bowser until February 22nd and Custom Traxx would not get their inventory until March 3rd. We really hope that more model railroad manufacturers will start thinking about make more models of today's rapid transit, commuter rail and light rail models if they are interested in having modelers in the future to buy their products. Notice to HO scale Bowser We have received scattered reports that some of the new Bowser San Francisco F-line PCC cars run in reverse when the Train Control Systems M4T decoder or any other decoder is installed. The cars did run correctly in DC operation before the NMRA plug was removed. This anomaly seems to be limited to the 12550 (San Francisco), 12558 (Chicago), 12559 (Boston) and 12563 (Baltimore) cars, issued last month. The cars released in November 2009, 12552 (Los Angeles), 12555 (Philadelphia, 12557 (Cincinnati) and 12561 (Pacific Electric) do not seem to be affected by this. This problem has nothing to do with the M4T decoder or any other decoder used in the car. The trucks and the motor were not wired to the main circuit board in accordance with the approved wiring diagram. The Bowser-Custom Traxx team has evaluated this problem and it will should be resolved before the last six PCC cars in the San Francisco F-line series are released. An interim solution, if this situation is encountered, is very simple and easy. Add the value of 1 to whatever the value is contained in CV 29. If this value is 6, increase it to 7 and if the value is 38, change it to 39. Contact Custom Traxx at 310-990-5422 if you have any questions! _________________________________________________ [Angel's Flight, from col. 1]
The line continued to operate until 1969, when it was temporarily shut down for Bunker Hill construction. Regardless of all the political promises, the line was not re instituted until 1999, almost thirty years later.
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To the crowds delight, models of Muni's Cincinnati Car (1057), Boston Car (1059) and Pacific Electric (1061) were operated under live overhead wire during the show. 
