#16
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Philly was in crisis or why did it closed so many streetcars lines?
I avoid the term "trolley" because in Romanian "troleu" ("trolley") refers to troleibuze (trolleybuses), not tramvaie (streetcars). In the '70's (or early '80's) the tranzition to pantographization was complete and anyway the streetcars of Romania had this kind of trolley: http://www.oradeainimagini.ro/din-tr...a-1024x670.jpg |
#17
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Quote:
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#18
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It's too expensive to drive everywhere in Vancouver these days so it's more than worth the time to find a place to park and use the rather extensive trolley bus service that popped up after the trolley lines were dug out in the 50's.
Of course you only want to sit on a bus for so long so for the extra long trips (say from downtown to the Metrotown mall in Burnaby) you can get off the bus and take the SkyTrain up to Metrotown in about 15 minutes. Not sure what they qualify SkyTrain for now. It used to be "Intermediate Capacity" and then it became "Advanced Light Rail Transit" and now it's "Advanced Rapid Transit" |
#19
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Anytime I have to go to Washington, DC (about 90 minutes from me) I park my car at a metro station prior to the city limits and ride the rest of the way. I promised myself years ago that I would never again attempt to drive in that city! Parts of the system are above ground. Overall I've found it to be clean & efficient.
I've ridden on the Baltimore system which I think is considered light rail. This was probably 20 years ago so I don't recall much except it wasn't a bad experience. In the rural area where I live there really has never been much in the way of public transportation (beyond, I guess, the old Pennsylvania Railroad). There are limited runs of small buses operated by the county, mostly for the disabled & elderly.
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Bryan |
#20
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"Chicago Metra" are classical trains. The ones from the elevated urban routes are using subway cars.
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Audiokarma |
#21
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I rode the tubes in Boston a few times as a kid. Took a train
to get there known as a Budd Liner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Rail_Diesel_Car You can keep the subways, filthy & stink if piss. At the turn of the century even small towns often had trolleys. I grew up in a small yankee town without much shopping & it was a "dry" town. Next town over was a mill town with a big down town. A trolley ran between them. Whole families would go on Saterdays. The wife & kids went shopping & the men poured into the bars. Some of the bars were favorite haunts for Babe Ruth. My grandfather said " he had a thirst that could cast a shadow". Babe had a lakeside place in nearby Stow. Only other odd transportation I had was the Cog RR. http://www.nhptv.org/cog/ They were still running steam then. 73 Zeno LFOD ! |
#22
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I rode the trolley in Memphis a few times...saw one of them catch fire and burn up too!
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Let me live in the house beside the road and be a friend to man. |
#23
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Watched both of the go up in flames ! They were just driving down the road & suddenly smoke then flames........ 73 Zeno LFOD ! |
#24
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When I was a kid they Had trolley-bus's in Nottingham, replaced by diesel in 1966. In 2003 they opened a tramway/streetcar system, they had to introduce a workplace parking tax to pay for it. The trams are getting a bit worn out now & breakdown at least once a week, sometimes more often, been on it twice. Been on the London underground a few times, very hot in summer though..
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#25
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I've heard if you want a real trolley experience you can go to Seattle and ride the
South Lake Union Trolley around the downtown core. |
Audiokarma |
#26
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that arcoymn.
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Tom C. Zenith: The quality stays in EVEN after the name falls off! What I want. --> http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...62&postcount=4 |
#27
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Last edited by Telecolor 3007; 06-20-2018 at 05:17 PM. |
#28
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The Romainian trolley reminds me a lot of the old "PCC" type streetcar in the US, and I believe some post war European trollies were based on the design (The Chezch Tatra, in particular).
The PCC was a big breakthrough when it came out - smooth, fast, and highly effective brakes. There's still a few cities in the US that use them. Subways are common in older US cities, and the northeastern US has a lot of electric commuter trains on the 750V DC third rail system, and also on the 11kv 25hz ac overhead system, and 13.8kv 60hz ac, and 25kv 60hz ac. The New Haven line of Metro-North leaves NYC under the DC third rail system, and changes without stopping to AC at Pelham NY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh-MG7NFpQA NJ Transit changes voltage / frequency at SWIFT (which is a dumb name for a 15mph junction), and also at Red Bank. But all their trains are overhead power on the AC system. Stupidly, their older trains can't change voltages in operation, because they didn't want to install the changeover equipment. But they can change voltages at the shop, by literally flipping a switch under the car. Interestingly, because Penn Station in NYC is 11kv 25Hz, Metro-North can't go there, even though the tracks connect to the New Haven line at New Rochelle, because their trains won't run on 25hz. Amtrak's will, so they use the Hell Gate line to access Penn and go south of NYC from there. SEPTA has a lot of trains (most of the fleet) that can change voltage/frequency, but the entire system is 11kv 25hz with no intention of ever changing. Amazingly, nobody in the US sees any of this as being stupid! |
#29
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It remainds you because they are Czech made P.C.C. type streetcars (in Europe trolleys are trolleybuses, not streetcars). Years ago I noticed that the boogie of a P.C.C. streetcars resemble with the ones of "Tatra" streetcars made Č.K.D. ... later I found out why. The P.C.C. where copied by Czech, Belgian, Italian, Polish manucaturers. ČKD made more P.C.C. streetcars then "Pulmann Standard" and "Saint Louis Car Company" combined. T1 and T2 where the 1sts, but the T3 one was the 1st produced in very large quantyties. Only Galaţi had T3's (I don't if is any left preserved), the rest T4's.
@ Colly0410 : quting trolleybuses wasn't a good ideea. In the '30's you had some intresting looking doble decker trolleybuses down there. I mean this: http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/ar...tingham-24.jpg There isn't a single country in the world lef to operate double decker trolleybuses... only in museums you can ride them. In Bucharest is even worse. Only about 10% of the public transportation income comes from people paying the ride and there is a big lack of spare parts for trams (streetcars), trolleybuses, buses so you can't improve a lot the public transportation. The subway starting to be built in around 1975 it's more modern. Romanians have tradition in building railways. We could have had more subway lines, but Nicoale Ceauşescu preffered to spen money on meagolmanic projects in stad of building more subway lines and aftere 1989... Railways (except for narrow gauage or industrial ones) where started to be electrified lately, so we use 27 k.V. 50 Hz. Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine (larger gauge) are using the same system, but olny one border crossing is electrified - one to/from Hungary... Last edited by Telecolor 3007; 06-27-2020 at 09:38 AM. |
#30
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Ahh, they are PCCs! The PCC was a big breakthrough in the US when it came out, and as I said, they're still used in a few places. Modern requirements for low floor boarding and all have put them out of favor. Boston still has a line with them, San Francisco and Kenosha do too. Philly has a line of rebuilt ones that have AC inverter drive.
The US had electrics early on, and naturally every railroad used its own system. Sadly, the massive 3,000 volt system out west to Seattle was torn down in the 70's - ironically, the RR tore it down to sell the copper to buy diesels. Then the fuel crunch hit and they went bankrupt. Whoops. There was a lot of electric freight in the east, but Amtrak decided to charge Conrail a lot for electricity, so Conrail shut the lines down. Railroading in the US is basically a total disaster, especially passenger... |
Audiokarma |
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