Urban Commuter / Light Rail / Modern Streetcar News!
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by Edward Havens

BETHESDA, MD - The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Washington, D.C., cleared the way on July 19 for Maryland Transit Administration to begin construction of the 16-mile Bethesda to New Carrollton light rail Purple Line on an east-west alignment in the suburbs just north of the nation's capital. The appellate court reinstated the Purple Line's environmental approval which had been revoked last year by a federal District Court judge, The Washington Post reported. Congress had appropriated $325 million for the project but the funding won't be available until a Full Funding Agreement is signed with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

DETROIT, MI - A four-door Jeep turned in front of a Detroit Q Line streetcar on Woodward Avenue July 24, resulting in the first notable streetcar-auto collision since the 3.3-mile, $187 million car line opened May 12, "crain's detroit business" reported. Damage was minor to the Brookville Equipment streetcar, one of six used on the line. The motorist was cited after the collision No one was injured. The streetcar damage appeared to be mainly cosmetic. The car was moved to the car house for repairs.

QLine 290 shortly after the incident.

EAST HAVEN, CT - The "patch dot com" site reported July 10th that Shore Line Trolley Museum at East Haven, Connecticut, not far from Connecticut's largest city at New Haven, was slated to hold its second annual Trolley Festival July 29th. The event was to include morning and afternoon rail-in-service parades including passenger streetcars and utility cars intended only for work service... such as snowplows. Tickets ranged from $6 to $10. There were to be all-day photo opportunities, a very popular attraction at most street railway museums, as most visitors love seeing the colorful cars.

A collage of some of the colorful vehicles that can be seen at the East Haven Museum.

KANSAS CITY, MO - Clay Chastain, a rail transit advocate who no longer lives or is a registered voter in Kansas City, western Missouri's largest city, still is pushing a hybrid light rail-streetcar plan on the August 8 ballot, the Kansas City Star reported July 7.

Artists rendering of Siemens S70 looking vehicle.

He is proposing a 3/8-cent sales tax over 25 years for a car line that would link downtown with Swope Park. Chastain, who lives at Bedford, Virginia, has submitted 10 light rail tax proposals to Kansas City voters over the years but only one was approved and it was rejected by the City Council as unworkable.

LOS ANGELES, CA - The downtown Los Angeles modern streetcar line project has been delayed until a 2021 debut, seven months later than recently projected, the "LAist" site reported on June 27th. The revised cost estimate including pay back of finance charges is $290.7 million. Projected costs have taken a huge spike since voters approved the car line back in 2012.

Artists concept of CAF-type modern low floor streetcar.

Map of proposed LA Streetcar!

The revised schedule includes a hoped-for Federal Transit Administration "Small Starts" program grant of $100 million but it's unclear if the White House administration of President Donald Trump will continue that program.

NEW ORLEANS, LA - On July 24th, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority shut down its new Rampart-St. Claude streetcar line skirting the tourist-oriented French Quarter so the local utility could make electrical repairs along the corridor, the Times-Picayune newspaper reported.

Car 2018 under tow after suffering a serious problem.

When the car line was built, electric lines were moved to permit track construction and now they are being put back the way they were. The work, which had been delayed by storms, was expected to last a week or less with shuttle buses substituting for streetcars between Canal Street and Elysian Fields. This line is unique in New Orleans in that the streetcar stops are built to light rail standards as opposed to typical simple concrete platforms.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA - Progressive Railroading reported on June 30th that the City of Ottawa, Ontario, officials have signed a $349 million variation agreement with Rideau Transit Group Partnership (RTG) for the rolling stock and onboard equipment needed for extensions to the city's O-Train light-rail system.

Proposed extensions add 23 miles and 38 more vehicles to the existing system.

The pact extends existing contractual arrangements, according to a press release issued by SNC-Lavalin, which is part of RTG. RTG is a consortium composed of SNC-Laval in, ACS Infrastructure Canada Inc. and EllisDon. The group currently is delivering the first phase of the Confederation Line and will extend its existing contractual agreement for the second phase. In March, RTG and Ottawa ratified a memorandum of understanding for a portion of the second phase of the O-Train's Confederation Line. Signed contracts for the project to be delivered by SNC-Lavalin and its partners include delivery of 38 additional light-rail vehicles to be assembled at the Belfast maintenance, administration and storage facility, as well as assistance to Ottawa during the procurement process. "We are proud that the city of Ottawa has extended our scope to ensure the growth of the project and has entrusted us to maintain the Confederation Line's core assets until 2048," said Chantal Sorel, managing director of capital at SNC-Lavalin.

NEW YORK CITY, NY - An MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) "A" subway train derailed on June 27th and injured at least 34 people. None of the injuries were life-threatening, according to the New York City Fire Department's Twitter account. The derailment marked the latest incident in a string of mishaps and delays for NYCT's subway system. Earlier this month, an "F" train lost power in Manhattan and left passengers stranded in overheated cars, The New York Times reported. The cause of yesterday's A train derailment stemmed from an improperly secured piece of replacement rail that was stored on the tracks, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota and Interim Executive Director Ronnie Hakim said in a joint statement. The issue appeared to be human error, not a track defect, they added. "NYCT is inspecting every inch of rail to ensure that each and every replacement part is properly stored and secured," Lhota and Hakim said. "The investigation into this incident continues." Following overnight emergency repair work, "A" train service resumed with "extensive delays," NYCT tweeted this morning.

Joseph J. Lhota, former Deputy New York Mayor, currently Chairman, New York MTA.

However, on June 29th Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman Joseph Lhota yesterday announced he will conduct a top-to-bottom audit to overhaul MTA New York City Transit's (NYCT) subway system. The agency will work with transit experts and management consultants to perform the audit, which will examine NYCT's challenges and limitations to identify strategies for short- and long-term changes. Within 60 days, Lhota will present a plan to modernize the subway system. The plan will include changing and training personnel, implementing and executing "processes that work," improving customer communication, and engaging and implementing new technology, MTA officials said in a press release. Lhota made the announcement at the agency's Genius Transit Challenge Conference held yesterday.

The conference examined ways to fix and improve New York City's subways. New York State is offering three $1 million "genius" awards for the best ideas across three categories: improving NYCT's subway system, deploying modernized rail cars and increasing communications infrastructure in the system. "It is our responsibility to transport people as safely, quickly and efficiently as possible, and the current state of the subway system is unacceptable. In tandem with the Genius competition proposals, we will deploy a multifaceted plan to restore confidence to the MTA and prove that we can deliver for our customers," Lhota said. The MTA Genius Transit Challenge judging panel includes former Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg, MTA Interim Executive Director Ronnie Hakim, and Cornell Tech Dean and Vice Provost Daniel Huttenlocher. Yesterday at the conference, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the MTA. Within recent weeks, the subway system has been dogged by recurring delays and operational issues, including that derailment that injured dozens of riders earlier the same week.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - The Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) closed its subway-surface trolley tunnel from 10 p.m. Friday, July 7 to 5 a.m. Monday, July 17 for a nine-day maintenance blitz, the "philly dot com" site reported. Work included replacement of wooden boards on the ceiling to hold trolley wire and various rail renewal projects including installation of new crossing "frogs' at the 40th Street Portal in West Philadelphia.

1981 Kawasaki car #9023 at the Juniper Street station of the Surface Car Subway.

Work crews were scheduled to work 24/7 to complete the maintenance of the 2-1/2 mile tunnel to Center City. Riders on Routes 10, 11, 13, 34 and 36 had to transfer to the Market-Frankford-Subway-Elevated line at 40th Street subway station using diversion trackage left from the former 14 and 40 streetcar lines, abandoned in the 1950s.

PITTSBURGH, PA - Pittsburgh's Port Authority ran its last PCC streetcar through Mt. Lebanon in the South Hills area on the 38/42 car line April 14, 1984 (see below left) but on its way to Dormont it derailed (see below right), ending service, the "observer-reporter" newspaper web site posted in an historical feature story July 4th.

The PCC, car 1758, apparently split a switch and had to be re-railed. For the next three years, a 3,000 foot tunnel was bored with a new light rail station built at Mt. Lebanon. That village's officials wanted tracks removed from Washington Road, the main business street. The $17.2 million tunnel was completed in time for new light rail service to begin to South Hills, May 22, 1987. Retired Port Authority employee George Gula recalls that a ceremonial first day event was held with remaining PCCs and new LRVs running over the rebuilt line.

SAINT LOUIS, MO - There has been yet another delay in the public service roll-out of the Delmar Loop heritage streetcar line at the St. Louis inner ring suburb of University City, the "riverfront times dot com" blog reported on July 10th Only two of three trolleys for the two-mile car line are in operator's possession and each requires 300 miles of break-in testing. But only 20 to 25 miles of testing have taken place.

Kevin Barbeau, chief executive of Loop Trolley Company, says the system now has a date in mind to begin service on the $52 million car line but it won't be announced until the line really is ready to run. However, it is unlikely to be this summer. Delmar has two Gomaco-built ex-Portland TriMet replica semiconvertibles and Gomaco is overhauling an ex-Melbourne "W" class tram.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - In a move reminiscent of the early days of the San Diego "Tijuana Trolley", Progressive Railroading reported on July 5th that the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) has received $4.5 million from the Salt Lake County Council to double track a portion of its S-Line streetcar route. The move will enable UTA to run streetcars every 15 minutes along the 2-mile route, agency officials said in a press release.

Two of the Siemens S70 UTA Sugarhouse streetcars.

The total cost of the double-track project is $6 million. Coupled with funds allocated through the federal Congestion Mitigation Air Quality program, the Salt Lake County money will provide enough financial support to get the project off the ground and provide for at least four years of extra operational and maintenance costs. S-Line streetcars currently run on a single track from the Central Pointe TRAX station in South Salt Lake to the Fairmont Station in Salt Lake City's Sugar House neighborhood. If streetcars need to pass one another, one unit must pull onto a side track and stop while the other car moves past it. The agency now runs streetcars every 20 minutes. Ridership on the S-Line route is up 8 percent in 2017's first quarter compared to the same period last year. "This is such a vibrant area of our community and with development increasing at a fast pace, going to 15-minute frequency should provide increased ridership," said Jerry Benson, UTA's president and chief executive officer. Although some approvals for the double-track project are still pending, construction could begin in early 2019.

SAN DIEGO, CA: Three people were injured and heritage PCC 529 was heavily damaged when a van collided with the streetcar on the downtown loop service on July 18, City News Service reported in a story posted by KSWB-TV. The collision, apparently caused by an illegal turn on the part of the van driver, damaged one of two PCCs used on the downtown service and caused one car side to be crumpled and the pantograph damaged. The PCC had been restored at a cost of $880,000. It will take months to repair the PCC, leaving only one in service until a third can be fully renovated and put into operation. Each of the PCCs used is little different. The first, car 529, came from San Francisco which had acquired it second-hand from Saint Louis. The second, car 530, came from Newark which had acquired it from Minneapolis after just six years of service. San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) began operating the PCCs on the Silver Line in 2011.

Car 529, formerly San Francisco 1170, the first PCC to enter service on the Silver Line in 2011 and the one involved in the accident!

Car 108, one of the 62 environmentally friendly low floor vehicles delivered from KinkiSharyo to Seattle between 2006 and 2014.

SEATTLE, WA: July 18 marked the eighth anniversary of the Seattle-based Sound Transit Link light rail. It operates on a north-south alignment and with its latest extensions links the University of Washington with downtown, Tukwila, SeaTac Airport and the city of SeaTac south of the airport. The Platform, an online transit agency news update service, reports that during May 2017, the route carried 73,000 weekday riders and topped two million riders for the entire month. Ultimately Sound Transit LRT will be five times larger than today, reaching Everett, Tacoma and other Puget Sound destinations.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA - The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has named the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) its "outstanding public transportation system" for 2017, as reported by Progressive Railroading on June 28th. The award recognizes the Toronto agency's "transformative change" over the past five years, TTC officials said in a press release.

Award (left) with photo (right) of the first of Toronto's new Bombardier "Flexity" five-unit streetcars.

The TTC's efforts have included developing a five-year plan aimed at putting customers first. The plan featured a new station management model, customer charter, and fleet and infrastructure renewal programs. The award winner is selected by transit system peers across North America. The TTC last received the honor in 1986. "We set out to deliver a transit system that makes Toronto proud. This honor reflects the hard work we’ve done for our customers and the people of Toronto," said TTC Chief Executive Officer Andy Byford. The TTC will be officially recognized at APTA's annual conference in fall. By passenger volume, the TTC is North America's third largest transit system after New York City and Mexico City, according to the Toronto agency.

CBC News reported on July 21 that Metrolinx, the regional transit planning and funding agency in southern Ontario, has decided to give up its legal battle with Bombardier Transportation over late delivery of standard gauge LRVs for various project cities. The Toronto-based agency will instead attempt to negotiate a solution. As a result, Metrolinx will not appeal a judge's ruling that it could not cancel a CAD $770 million (USD $614.1 million) contract for LRVs. Bombardier failed to deliver a prototype and 182 LRVs for the rail expansion in southern Ontario cities including Mississauga just south of Toronto.

The first of 14 Bombardier Ion LRVs intended for Waterloo, Ontario!
Bombardier claims at this time that they will have all 13 cars delivered by the end of 2017.

TUCSON, AZ - Sun Link was scheduled to mark the third anniversary of their 3.9 mile modern streetcar line on July 22 with free rides all day, KVOA television reported. The $196 million car line was opened July 25, 2014 with $69 million in federal "TIGER" economic recovery grant funding along with other sources including Pima County-wide sales taxes approved by voters for highways, pedestrians, bicycles and transit. RATP North America, which operates the streetcar, will take over all of Tucson's bus system September 1, 2017.

 

Siemens and Bombardier to Merge? Truth or Rumor?
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by A. J. Staley

In the June 2017 Tramways & Urban Transit, an article appeared regarding a potential merger between Bombardier and Siemens. The publication stated in part, that during the month of April 2017 worldwide financial press had reported that discussions were underway between the two entities. The speculation for the driving force for the merger was to create a larger company to be able to compete with CRRC’s strength to secure finance for major infrastructure projects in developing countries, as well as offer extremely competitive bids to gain market shares.

In truth, Siemens and Bombardier began “secret” talks as far back as July 2015 according to an article in the Wall Street Journal dated July 29, 2015. Earlier this year in January 2017 “secret” talks were again mentioned in various publications worldwide and since April 25, 2017, no decision has been made.

On May 16, 2017, in the International Railway Journal, it was reported by Bombardier, CEO Mr. Laurent Troger, at the UITP Global Summit in Montreal that the rumors were not true. Troger stated, “We have two shareholders, Bombardier and Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ), those two shareholders are today managing the future of the company, and I cannot comment on what their intentions are for the future.” He further stated, “However, I don’t think they have any intention to change the structure.”

The reports emerged in April and cite concern at both Bombardier and Siemens at competing with CRRC, China, which is rapidly gaining market share around the world. Creating a much larger company with greater financial resources could be one way of doing this while a potential merger would allow some rationalization of manufacturing plants to reduce costs and improve competitiveness.

The Siemens Avenio Vehicle, shown in the Netherlands, the basis for the S70 now sold in the United States.

However, Mr. Troger says that Bombardier considers its strategy of emphasizing reduced total cost of ownership rather than up front capital cost in its offerings, as well as its technological expertise, as the best way to compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

“We have to understand that the Chinese are looking to compete outside of China and they will bring their specific dynamics to this market,” Troger said. “As far as we are concerned, we will keep positioning ourselves as the leading-edge provider that will optimize the total cost of ownership for our customers. We consider that we have the best technology, and the best products, and we want to maintain our leadership in delivering the highest value for our customer.”

Mr. Troger said that since becoming CEO in December 2016, he has instituted a transformational strategy. This emphasizes five key pillars:

• Improving flexibility to meet customer needs all over the world:

• A greater emphasis on securing success in systems and service contracts rather than relying predominately on rolling stock orders • Improving the performance and execution of projects and reducing costs:

• Optimizing the capacity of the company to provide better services, and;

• Greater standardization in offering to customers moving away from customized solutions.

Anyone in the business world who has dealt with mergers or acquisitions knows that with any merger, especially when sizable international companies are involved, many issues are to be considered.

Logically, companies and their higher-ranking executives are required to sign “non-disclosure statements” during the time of ALL negotiations to iron out all the issues and problems that arise in a move of this type and the due-diligence period of which both can take many months and in some cases, years.

In the case of Siemens and Bombardier, a merger of this size and type would require clearance from antitrust authorities and the concerns facing the two Europe-centered companies could be an obstacle to the deal, according to investment Securities.

The two companies both have plants in some of the same countries, and some of the products over lap or are similar in nature. In this case the two firms were reported to be merging their train-building and signal technology operations into a joint venture to compete with Asia, above all China, in the important export markets. The consolidated corporation could achieve estimated annual revenues of €13 billion. Decisions need to be made on which to keep and which to eliminate. China Railway Rolling Stock Group (CRRC) reportedly has an annual revenue of $34.5 billion, more than double the revenue of Bombardier and Siemens put together in this branch of operation.

Thousands of jobs would hang in the balance if there were a merger, since the range of products manufactured by the two corporations overlap in many areas. While thousands of jobs at both corporations as well as supply industries are in danger, shareholders of both companies would rejoice over the prospects “IF” the merger succeeded. Bombardier produces various regional and high speed train models in its plants in Görlitz, Bautzen and Henningsdorf, and Siemens Mobility produces a similar model in the plants in Krefeld and Munich.

Siemens and Bombardier would face potential opposition from unions. Unions are integrated into the merger talks at the highest level, but usually maintain a policy of absolute silence with their own members. This local patriotism of the unions is totally reactionary and only serves to play the workers against one another at a time when the growing cooperation and the merger of the corporation urgently requires an international collaboration of employees in all locations. Bombardier has already been engaged in negotiations with IG Metal and the works councils to cut 2,500 jobs at its German Plants this year alone. The largest layoffs would take place at the Görlitz and Henningsdorf locations.

However, one must ask, does Siemens really wants to take the risk of acquiring Bombardier? Bombardier has a reputation of not delivering completed vehicles on a timely basis, as has been facing legal problems because of it.

It was also reported in the June 2017 Tramways & Urban Transit that Metrolinx had been blocked from terminating a major Bombardier LRV Contract. The 2010 contract for 182 LRV’s from Bombardier had not delivered and the pilot cars for Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown were not delivered in 2015 as specified. And they were not delivered in 2016 either. The contract was to be completed by 2021. It had been argued that the delays by Bombardier would result in delays for the overall project. Justice Glenn Hainey ruled against these arguments, however his ruling is conditional in that Bombardier is to take ‘all reasonable steps to expedite’ based on a decision by the dispute resolution board; the injunction would also be lifted if the board agreed that Bombardier was in default.

A partial prototype of the Bombardier LRV that will eventually be delivered to Metrolinx for the Eglinton (Canada) Crosstown Line!
These were ordered in 2010 with pilot cars to be delivered in 2015 and have not yet been delivered.
The contract was for 182 vehicles and period of performance was 2009-2018.

Metrolinx had unveiled the Bombardier Flexity Freedom LRV, shown at left, for the light rail project in the city of Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition. A total of 204 were ordered in 2009 but only about 40 have ben delivered to date. The period of performance for this contact was 2009-2018.

Another Bombardier contract that is just as, if not more, controversial is the 2009 contract the company signed with Toronto’s Transit Commission (TTC). The $1.2 billion deal was signed nearly a decade ago to replace the aging fleet of Toronto CLRV streetcars with 204 new ones by the end of 2018. The Finance News, on July 17, 2017, reported that Bombardier had only delivered 40 cars despite the pledge to deliver up to 70 this year. Bombardier noted that it would be a “challenge” to meet the order for 70 streetcars promised for delivery this year. The contract is on its fifth revision since it was signed and the latest Bombardier promise is to deliver 70 cars this year 76 in 2018, and the balance of 58 to be delivered in 2019, The original contract was to end in 2018.

This modification schedule pales in comparison to the original one, which had called for upwards of 130 new vehicles to be in service by now. As a result, Metrolinx has beefed up penalties in the 61 Light Rail Vehicle contract with Alstom based on the Bombardier dispute. Forty-four of the $528-million deal with Alstom will end up in service on the Eglinton Crosstown line. The Alstom deal is confidential; however, it is estimated that Alstom will pay a penalty of $55,000 a day for each vehicle that is late with a total cap of penalty fees of 13 percent of the value of the contract. That’s more than 35 times greater than the late penalties in the Bombardier contract.

Artists rendering of one of the 61 Alstom vehicles that will end up on the Eglinton Crosstown Line.

So, the questions remain: Siemens and Bombardier to Merge?
Truth or Rumor?
Would Siemens really want to take on the risks involved with Bombardier’s reputation?
We wait and see.

A Unique Car for My Layout!
...and the challenges that resulted...
***

by Custom Traxx

Ever since we started modeling trolleys in high school, we were always attracted to the "odd" cars. In Philadelphia this would have included car 2070, painted in the then GM bus orange, green and white; 2128, the "Safety" car; 2667, the "Zoo" car and later 2780, the "Training" car. Since Bowser made a reasonable model of the Philadelphia 2091-2200 class of 1948 all-electric PCC cars, Custom Traxx did produce a set of decals, set CN-2128, for the"Safety" car in HO scale. A finished car using that decal set is shown below left:

Having both lived in Los Angeles since 1981 and by now educated in their trolley history, I wanted to have one of their unique cars. That car was car 3002 the "Crying Trolley". This car was painted in early 1963 as such to mark the end of electric street railway in Los Angeles in 1963. Car 3002 was chosen for this honor because the first PCC car, 3001, was already leased to a local museum and it also was the car parked adjacent to Los Angeles City Hall and Shirley Temple, famous child star of that era was on board the car at that time welcoming the public when she was 9 years old.

Custom Traxx considered a decal set for this car when the announcement of the Con-Cor air-electric PCC model was announced but that idea was dropped when the final model was released with all the inaccuracies in the final body shell (especially in the front and the rear), despite the fact that the model was based on car 3001, now resident and fully restored at a local Southern California museum. But when more prototypical shells started being 3D printed in not only HO scale but also N scale, we felt it was time to resurrect the plans. It was just at this time that RailGraphics announced their withdrawal from the decal-making field, prompting Custom Traxx to try Microscale in Fountain Valley, CA. The rest is history and those decals were produced in both HO (CN-3002) and N (NN-3002) scale by April 2017.

We took a different route for our LAMTA 3002. We started with an old Q-Car Brooklyn PCC shell and carefully using a file, merged the two halves of the destination sign to form one single one. Using now unavailable Floquil paint, the interior of the shell was airbrushed with Weathered Black (Floquil 17). Then Reefer White (Floquil 11) was airbrushed on the roof. A mixture of Scalecoat Penn Central Green (34) and Reefer White (11) was used for the light green below the belt rail and Pollyscale MEC Pine Green (404052) was used for the dark green window area.

Powering this car was going to be a challenge, once we decided not to take the easy way out and use the Con-Cor PCC and drive mechanism. Once upon a time (since 1999) Bowser made a 125141 mechanism with floor with their upgraded drive for their older PCC models and a 125142 mechanism with floor, intended for the Bachmann PCC and other resin, such as Q-Car, and plastic PCC shells, which could be adapted quite well to fit these shells. Bowser even provided mounts that were to be placed inside the shell under the roof at both the front and back of the shells to attach the shell to the floor. Most of our pre-2009 HO scale PCC models used one of these Bowser mechanisms in one form or another, always with the added A-line Bowser Trolley Flywheel kit. However, Bowser some years ago ceased their die-casting abilities, which brought the end to the #1283 metal floor used for these venerable PCC mechanisms.

The Custom Traxx partnership with Bowser in the development of both the HO scale PCC and New Orleans 900 series streetcars yielded some advantages. Due to the unacceptable failure rate of the early sound boards used in the original DCC-sound equipped trolleys, Custom Traxx obtained several of the floors, that are used with the RTR PCCs imported from overseas along with some motors, drive trains and power trucks used in those cars. These floors will be referred to as part #1361, but they are NOT available from Bowser!

Note: Although the #1361 floors are NOT available from Bowser, Custom Traxx does have a small supply of them.

So this would be a great time to try and fit the #1361 floor into the Q-car Chassis. Figure 1 shows the difference between the 1283 floor (silver), and the latest version of the PCC RTR floor (Green) with the mounts for a speaker. It looks like with a little filing we can make this floor work. There were several versions of this metal floor over the years starting with the elimination of the seat next to the front door to the inclusion of mounts for the speakers used in the models with DCC/Sound.

Figure 1 - Bowser 1283 and 1361 All-Electric PCC Floors.

Note: The Bowser PCC has undergone several modifications from the time the first cars were introduced in 2009. Some of these were in the wheels used, the axle and worm gear bearings, and the floors. With the #1283 floor no longer available, we thought that this would be a good time to see if the #1361 floor could be used in place of the #1283. We knew that the #1361 floor was wider because the plastic shell was thinner but when we actually measured the floors, we found the difference to be much smaller than anticipated (26.2 mm versus 25.4 mm, a difference of just .8 mm) but we still did not know how the ends would work and, of course, we would have to fit this into the resin Q-car shell.

So the first thing we did was to line up the openings in the floor for the power and trailing trucks for both floors and, using a #30 drill, drill the holes in the green #1361 floor for the screws that normally mount the floor to the body.

Figure 2 - Bowser 1361 floor after mounting holes drilled in the ends to match the Bowser 1283 floor.

To be successful in any modeling project, it is mandatory to have most of the following three things:

1. Some modeling skills.
2. Most if not all of the tools needed, or,
3. An associate with #1 and #2!

Most of us fortunately have some of #1 and some of #2 but I have #3 in the form of John McWhirter, the current Director of the 22 year old Southern California Traction Club. He has a garage full of various tools in his home and after looking at the project decided the the first thing to do is to use his belt sander to remove the .4 mm from each side. So we did that and since we had the PCC body with us, we could precisely shape the ends to fit our shell.

At the completion of our visit, our modified green 1361 shell looked as shown in the next photo. Bear in mind that the silver 1238 floor below to it fit perfectly in our Q-Car shell.

Figure 3 - Bowser 1361 after material removed from sides and ends to fit inside the Q-Car shell.

Figure 4 - Modified Bowser 1361 floor in Q-Car Shell.

Before we started to assemble the drive unit and install it on the #1361 floor, we touched up the bare metal with tru-color TCP-256 Light Primer and then with TCP-067 BN Cascade Green, which seemed to be a close match to the original green used by the manufacturer.

We had been able to strip one of the ANT-RAIL switches from one of the bad Bowser PCCs and after John McWhirter studied the switch, he deduced that the four wires, (from left to right) should be wired as shown in Figures 5 and 6:

Wire 1 (extreme left)	Right Rail and Motor/Decoder
Wire 2	Left Rail
Wire 3	Motor/Decoder
Wire 4 (extreme right)	Pantograph/Pole

Figure 5- ANT RAIL Switch Wires (Left to Right).

Figure 6: LAMTA 3002 with Bowser ANT-RAIL switch wires marked.

Another advantage of our relationship with Bowser is our ability to get some of the dynamically balanced motor-flywheel combinations used in the HO scale Bowser RTR PCC and New Orleans trolleys. These units are from damaged or returned RTR trolleys and unavailable separately. We snagged one for this project. We also used the basic Bowser nickel silver wheels and applied the resilient wheel decals from our CT-995 decal set.

So we installed the power and trailing trucks along with our balanced motor-flywheel combination and wired it to the ANT-RAIL switch in accordance with Figure 5 above, tested the car and it ran as expected.

There were only two tasks left on this project, installation of a DCC/Sound Decoder and Speaker and the headlights/taillights. The DCC items recommended for this project by Kevin Honda, Arnie's Model Trains, were the Soundtraxx #886001 Tsunami2 TSU-1100 Sound decoder for Electric Models along with the Soundtraxx #810154 Mini-cube Speaker (16.0 x 12.0 x 11.25mm). (This would be our first rechassis / re-motor /DCC - Sound installation!)

Figure 7 - LAMTA 3002 Chassis with Tsunami 2 Decoder, Mini Cube Speaker and Capacitor prior to installation.

So we moved on to the lights. immediately we discovered that the 1361 chassis has vertical walls at the front and back of the chassis. These would be perfect for the mounting of the lights. However, up to this time, we had mounted all lights on the body shell itself, making it simpler to mount the decoder on the underside of the roof. This minimized the number of wires that connected from the body shell to the chassis. With the lights now mounted on the chassis, we would have to create a space on the chassis for the decoder and speaker. The most space in the car body was behind the motor which had been used for the ESU speaker and we would have to make the best of that.

Placing the body shell on the chassis, we marked the locations of the lights by inserting a #61 drill through the holes in the body shell and then drilled the holes for the fiber optics. Because of prior experience, we would be using the Woodland Scenics NANO LED lights (JP5743-Warm White for the headlight; JS5745-Red for the rear brake lights). Each light was placed in series with a 470 ohm resistor. The almost completed chassis is shown next:

Figure 8 - LAMTA 3002 with DCC installed.

Kevin also chastised us for not installing the small capacitor that came with the unit. We had been led to believe that is was merely a "Keep Alive" type of addition but it is required to ensure the smooth operation of the decoder. Kevin checked the chassis out, installed the capacitor, changed the rear lights from Button F0r to Button 3 and used CV117 to set up our brake light function which operates on Button 11.

At the end of the day, the decoder worked on address 03 with default sounds. We could not wait to get to our workbench and get a JMRI/DecoderPro printout so that we could understand all the facets of this decoder. But JMRIDecoderPro would not read the decoder. It would only give us the "Timeout...(306)" error, so we stopped at this point as we could not make some of the changes we desired. We also placed a question on the JMRI Users Group about this issue.

Note: It was at this point in this article we intended to mention JMRI/DecoderPro as a great help to setting up DCC decoders and learning the capabilities of both DCC and the specific decoder at hand. JMRI (Joint Model Railroad Interface) is a project that has built tools for the model railroader. Such modelers can manage locomotive rosters and program their decoders with DecoderPro, build control panels and control their layouts with PanelPro and use OperationsPro to create manifests that route cars across their model railroads. JMRI is an ALL-VOLUNTEER GROUP of extremely knowledgeable Information Technology (IT) people.

But we had problems with JMRI/DecoderPro which started on June 29 when we tried to readdress our LAMTA 3002, equipped with a Tsunami 2, TSU-1100 and all we got is the "...timeout error... (306)...". We were initially told that the JMRI-DecoderPro folks had not yet gotten around to allow the program to recognize the Tsunami2 line of decoders but had been furnished the information. Meanwhile, we asked the JMRI Users Group for help and they claimed otherwise. In fact, we talked with one of the persons who wrote the code for those computers some time previously so he felt the problem must be elsewhere. Some members gave advice, but none of which unfortunately none seemed to solve our issue.

We contacted one member directly who had helped us before, which turned out to be our first mistake. He gave directions that we did not fully understand since we are hardly IT people and when we did not respond, he eventually called us ignorant, uninformed and insulting and eventually ranted about how many hours in the day he spends solving problems caused by exterior hardware that had nothing to do with JMRI.

Then one of then more mature members contacted us and we worked the problem. By process of elimination, we had eliminated the computer and the JMRI/DecoderPro program but not the PR3. So it was suggested that this may be the problem so we decided to try and talk with Digitrax. This is when we found out that just to talk to technical support, we have to set up an account and develop a password. So we did that and we got a response that started off on a somewhat negative note, telling us what they would not or could not do before they even discussed our issues:

" ...JMRI was on our web site as a courtesy but we never provided support. If you call in for assistance, we won't be able to sport support for JMRI or your Mac. There are just some things that are beyond the scope of tech support..."

Of course, none of this solved our problems except that making it plainly obvious that we may not get any help from these folks. But they did eventually ask us to send the PR3 to them for repair along with $17.00. And on July 17th, digitrax acknowledged receipt of the unit. But as of July 31st, we still could not use JMRI/DecoderPro, as our PR3 was still in the hands of Digitrax. We even tried with another computer/PR3/program track combination. We tested the power supplies and they all produced 18 volts D.C. under no load.!!

So we started evaluating for another interface to us. We investigated SPROG and a USB interface from NEC. By this time it had been suggested to us that we abandon our Macs and get a Windows computer. So here we were in that argument again. The NEC USB interface required an extraordinary amount of activity to set it up so it was rejected outright. As of July 31st, we have not yet tried SPROG, and do not have our PR3 back from Digitrax, so we still can not use JMRI.......

JMRI/DecoderPro is a fantastically useful program.......when the user can get it to work.....and it did for over ten years with the same PR3 and two different MAC computers! But when it stops working, look out! The fingers point every direction but the location of a solution. Looks like it is may be time to abandon an old friend we have been using since 2006 and find something that WORKS for ignorant and uninformed users! We finally readdressed the car with our Digitrax Zephyr and moved on with our project.

With the shell secured to the chassis, our completed car now waited for testing. It ran beautifully. Rest assured that as soon as there is an HO scale 3D printed version of the LARy P-1 PCC available, we will be painting and lettering another shell. But for now, this was the prototype test for Custom Traxx decal set CN-3002 and it will do:

So off we went to display this car in operation at the Pomona Great Train Show on July 8-9, 2017! It ran perfectly two-rail but for some reason would not budge using overhead wire.

Since this was our first DCC/Sound installation and also our first with lights mounted on the chassis, we had to rethink a lot of our practices, some of which pre-date the use of DCC. Now that the decoder and the lights were mounted on the chassis, the only required connection to the chassis would be the trolley pole. So we adopted an old method and created a spring wire connection from the chassis to the shell.

A piece of brass was cut and cemented to the underside of the roof directly over the motor (See A in the photo above). A piece of wire was soldered to it and the trolley pole pivot. We fashioned a platform from styrene and mounted it on top of the Bowser motor. The headlight wires were passed under the platform (See B in the photo above). A piece of brass was cemented to the top of the platform and a piece of spring wire was soldered to it. It should contact the piece of brass on the underside of the roof when the chassis and shell are assembled.

We also found the trolley pole along shown in the above photo, which was a former MTS PCC trolley pole, had some issues passing current so it was also replaced.

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