Urban Commuter / Light Rail / Modern Streetcar News!
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CLEVELAND, OH - In a move that will surely become the norm for transit agencies. the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) Interim Chief Executive Officer Flounsay Caver announced on August 13th the launch of free WI-FI at select Red Line Stations in East Cleveland, Ohio.

Car 848, one of 48 vehicles built in 1980 and 1981 by Breda Construzioni Ferroviarie. 34 of these vehicles are currently being renovated to last another 15 years.

For the record, Breda Construzioni Ferroviarie - BCF SpA was an Italian company, founded in 1971 with headquarters in Pistoia, Italy, that operated in the railway sector in particular in the construction of railway rolling stock for the transport of both passengers and freight. It closed in 2000 when merged into what now is AnsaldoBreda, whose vehicles are now operating in Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

WI-FI service is currently available at Tower City Station platforms and the rail lobby at Cedar University Station in Cleveland, as well as the the interior lobby and rail platform at Louis Stokes/Windermere Station, GCRTA officials said in a press release.  Crews also are installing WI-Fi on the Cedar University Station rail platforms, they said. GCRTA officials also announced a plan to begin enabling WI-Fi on all rail cars in its system starting in January 2020.

REDMOND, WA - In late July 2019 Sound Transit's board chose the Stacy and Witbeck/Kuney joint venture to complete final design and construction of the Downtown Redmond Link Extension project, which will extend light-rail 3.4 miles from the Redmond Technology Station to downtown Redmond, Washington.

The $729.3 million contract includes construction of guideway, two stations, a parking garage, the overhead catenary system, traction power substations, train control and communications, special track work, utilities, and street and trail improvements, Sound Transit officials said in a press release.

The board also authorized the joint venture to review alternative concepts received during the procurement process, and approved a $50 million allowance should it want to incorporate any of those elements into the contract.

Passenger-rail service on the extension is expected to begin in 2024.

SAN DIEGO, CA - The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) last week issued $335 million of its capital grant receipt revenue bonds to help finance the construction of the Mid-Coast Trolley, a trolley extension between the downtown area and University City in San Diego. 

This transaction will accelerate SANDAG’s receipt of a $1 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration under the Capital Investment Grant program, SANDAG officials said in a press release.

“The bonds were issued at a low borrowing cost, which will allow us to maximize the use of federal dollars for the project,” said SANDAG Chair and Poway Mayor Steve Vaus. 

Two of the eleven full size S70s in San Diego. These were the first low-floor vehicles ordered by SDMTS in 2004 but their full length (93.6 ft) makes three-car trains block two intersections downtown so they are currently operated only on the Orange Line.

The $2.1 billion Mid-Coast Trolley is currently under construction. When service begins in 2021, the extended 11-mile route will include nine new stations.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - The Market Street Railway reported that for the first time in 77 years on August 6, 2019, the biggest (longest) cable car in San Francisco (or anywhere for that matter) climbed “halfway to the stars” and back down again under cable power, in regular service conditions. 

""Big 19" on California crossing Grant Avenue. This car and 11 others just like it served Chinatown faithfully via the next two blocks to the north until 1942.

The 1883 vintage cable car known as “Big 19” for its size (seven feet longer than Powell Street Cable Car 19, and four feet longer than the California Street cable cars, previously the longest in the fleet) has been on the streets twice before in recent weeks for testing, but both times at night, while the rest of the cable cars were sleeping in the barn. 

On this day, it ran from the cable car barn at Washington and Mason Street just as a regular-service California Street cable car would, the cable pulling it up Jackson Street and along Hyde to reach the California line, then up to Van Ness, reversing ends all the way to Market Street, and back again to Hyde, pulling onto the non-revenue (no passengers) stretch of track on Hyde between California and Washington Streets. 

There, a few feet from its long-time route along Clay Street, the crew tested the slot blade, the emergency brake that brings cable cars to a quick stop when other brakes have problems. It worked fine, but under cable car rules, a car has to be towed back to the barn whenever a slot blade is dropped, so that’s how it ended the August 6th test.

So, no problems encountered anywhere; it fit everywhere. Because of its length, it wasn’t certain it would clear the terminal switch at California and Market while a Cal Car was “in the hole” (The extra space to store a cable car at the end of the line), but it made it with ease.

Acting Senior Operations Manager for Cable Car, Wes Valaris, a former gripman, poses on the running board of "Big 19" at the California and Market terminal. Note F-line PCC 1051 in the background.

There’s still some paperwork to be done, but at this writing, it looks like Big 19 will be cleared to make its passenger-carrying debut on Muni Heritage Weekend, September 7-8, an exciting event for sure. Thereafter, it’s expected to join O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde Cable Car 42 for infrequent but incredible special event service.

Thanks to Peter Ehrlich for reporting this to Trolleyville!

 

MODELING HINTS......

Great News for Avid Modelers - NWSL is back!
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The following item was announced on August 19, 2019 and should be great news for the a serious modeler:

Northwest Short Line is pleased to announce that the entire line has been acquired by an NWSL employee effective September 3, 2019. All existing back orders will be filled, and NWSL will be open to new orders as soon as the new websites are rolled out; the primary website nwsl.com will carry forward as the primary contact point.

The line is expected to carry forward largely unchanged although the company will no longer offer phone support. NWSL will be headquartered in Kila, Montana, located near Kalispell, and the new address will be P. O. Box 219, Kila, MT 59920. Email contact will be through the website.

 

Rich Allman's Kansas City Air-Electric PCC!
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Kansas City Public Service air-electric PCC 715 has entered operation on Dr. Richard Allman's HO scale model railroad, called Main Line Transit. The prototype was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1941. It was part of a 24-car order, cars 701-724. The series entered service on the 50 TROOST line, a line with heavy patronage and some steep grades for the cars to show what they had and could do. These would be the only PCC’s KCPS would acquire until the post-war years, when they purchased 160 distinctive all-electric cars without standee windows.

The Prototype:

The air cars were early victims of the abandonment of trolleys. Nonetheless, in their short time of operation, they sported 3 different paint schemes. I (typically!) chose the most complex, but one that along with the DC Transit, the Chicago Blue Goose, the earliest Dallas PCC scheme and the earliest Baltimore scheme was one of the most imaginative, distinctive and striking schemes created. The scheme I chose was the second one for this series, the scheme that was on the as-delivered post-war cars. Unlike the post-war all-electric cars, many of which found new life in Philadelphia, Toronto, Tampico, later in San Francisco via Toronto, and running gear for PCC cars in Brussels, all the air cars were scrapped with no further operation, utilization or preservation.

The KC air cars had many similarities to the 1941 Philadelphia cars, except that the KC cars had front dash lights in the belt rail and had four rear lights below the belt rail but lacked the typical Philadelphia roof whisker lights. Like the Philadelphia cars, the KC cars had a scalloped front window. There were many significant mechanical differences between the Philadelphia and KC cars, but they had no impact on the model. Typical of Kansas City PCC’s, the lower windows on the rear doors were covered on the inside. The 701-724 series were withdrawn from operation in 1953 but returned briefly in 1955 after 40 of the post-war cars were sold to Philadelphia and operated until late 1955 when subsequent KC abandonments enabled KCPS to retire them from service. Attempts to sell them to Mexico City or Seoul, South Korea were unsuccessful, and the entire series was sold for scrap in late 1955.

The Model:

The shell was from Q Car Co., an epoxy shell. I acquired it from Wally Weart in Colorado, who was “thinning his herd” a bit. It was powered with a Bowser drive and had a Bowser floor. Wally had painted the car in Chicago livery. Neither Chicago Surface Lines nor Chicago Transit Authority ever had 46-foot air cars. All their cars were 50 footers and 9 feet in width and had rear doors. Wally did a magnificent paint and decal job on the car; I should have taken a photograph of it. It was a “might-have-been” model for Wally. The first step was an arduous task, removing the paint. I tried a bunch of products specifically recommended for paint removal, but it did not want to budge. Brake fluid was recommended but I could not find anything about whether it was safe on epoxy, so I shied away. In the end, I was able to get most of it off with 91% isopropyl alcohol and some gentle scrubbing. Anything that did not come off was unlikely to cause any trouble! I needed to add the outside taillights. Bob Dietrich assisted me in drilling holes for some brass tubing insertion which made acceptable replicas. The base colors were Aged White and Engine Black with aluminum for anti-climbers and the headlight wings. I used acrylic dirt color for the wheels, track brakes, and fender. Before reinserting the drive, I installed an A-Line flywheel onto the drive shaft of the motor. The decaling was complex and there was some breakage due to time-related brittleness of the decals. A light lacquer spray helped. Custom Traxx has a nice decal set, CN-750, suitable for either the air car or the all-electric. The Kansas City Public Service logos are a bit large, but this is understandable: smaller decals would have lost needed resolution. They include a range of destination signs. I needed to do a bit of post-completion tweaking to make the car successfully navigate my minimum 6-1/4-inch curves. There was method in my selection of car 715. In Fred Schneider’s opus magnums on PCC’s Coast-to Coast, a front-end shot shows that car 715 lacked the dash lights in the belt rail that were typical for Kansas City. Applying them would have been a huge hassle, to say nothing about trying to decal over them!

Credits:

Thanks, are extended to Q Car Company who made the shell for the car and to Wally Weart who sold it to me via Ebay. The Bowser drive, when it can be used is the HO trolley modeler’s best friend. Thanks to George Huckaby of Custom Traxx for the decals. The books by Henry Eisner on Kansas City and the aforementioned PCC book by Fred Schneider and Steve Carlson were essential. Henry was a class guy and careful historian and modeler. Fred has been my friend for 57 years since our freshman year in college. As always, thanks are extended to my greatest of friends, my advisor and mentor, Bob Dietrich who was a source for so much brainstorming and troubleshooting.