What special requirement of the tunnel locomotives? All PRR and Amtrak electric motors have been specifically designed to operate in the North River and East River tubes.

The GE Genesis motors (P40DC, P32AC-DM, P42DC diesels) were designed to fit in Penn Station, but only the P32DM motors, which have thrd rail shoes, can actually pull a train. Under very special circumstances the P40 and P42 motors can run through lite, but there are no facilities for dealing with their exhaust fumes.

Back in the day, the New Haven FL9 motors could run on third rail but often had to run with the engine idling because the electric air compressor either did not work or was missing. They had to use the air compressor in the diesel.

Phil Mulligan

Why the compressor didn't work?
Before "Amtrack", there was any company that introduced electric heating of the cars (in stead of steam heating), either by a generator installed in the locomotive, or either by a geneator car?
Of the Northen - Mid West passanger operators, there where any who let Blacks or Non-Whites in the observation cars?

The air compressors did not work because the New Haven RR had been bankrupt for years and had very little money left. The FL9's had an engine-driven compressor so it was not absolutely necessary to repair the electric compressors.

Electric heating was tested on various trains over the years, but it was used on a fleet basis in the late 1950's in Chicago when the train's lighting, heating and air conditioning were powered from a generator on the locootive or on a power car.

Electric MU cars have used electric heat for the most part since they were built.

Phil Mulligan

What Chicago lines? Suburban lines? I still wonder that the South Shore Line (that goes to the state of Indiana, South Bend) survived. I it one of the few railroads outside the great Northen States the survived and one of the few electrics! I see that now is split in 2 by some works and between you have to take the bus.

Light prims (Luxfer prisms) in some rail station where wow!

Yes, the Chicago commuter roads. The HEP coincided with the bilevel Gallery cars on C&NW, MILW and CB&Q. Later CRI&P joined the party. They initially all used auxiliary diesels in converted existing units except CB&Q, which used power cars because their commuter locomotives were pooled with their long-distance locomotives which needed to provide steam heat.

HEP generated by the locomotive's propulsion diesel dates to NJ DOT's GE U34CH units used on EL's Erie-side lines operating from Hoboken NJ.

NOTE some roads (CNJ and B&M come to mind) used HEP to power the lights in their old cars. Heat was still steam from the locomotive and air-conditiong came by opening the window. This dates to steam locomotive days.

CSS&SB started out as an interurban trolley line and may have used coal stoves very early but soon switched to electric resistance heating.

Phil Mulligan

PRR DD1s were built with relatively small electric boilers (not 'steam generators') to supply steam heating to trains between Penn Statiojn and Manhattan Transfer. These did not last, and I couldn't get a consensus on what replaced them.

As I recall, the Budd Tubular Train had engine-driven HEP even though it operated much of its service under wire.

Intresting that the 1sts U.S.A. trains with electric heating where comuter trains, and not long distance. Electric heating was probably ground breaking back then and it still haves it's advantages. But when the companies that operated comuter trains around Chicago strated to introduce electric heating?

In Romania steam heating was in use even till around 2000, but mostly on non-electrified rails. The classical 060DA Romanian Co-Co Diesel-Electric locomotive (Swiss licence) didn't had heating generators. On one route from Bucharest to a Danube city (Olteniţa) they used 2 freight cars converted into heating cars... back then I thought they carried extra fuel for the locomotive; now I realize that the distance was too short for the locomotive to need extra-fuel.

As for the Chicago, IL. - South Bend, IN. is intresting to have the rail in the middle of street.
I miss one pice of industrial railroad in Bucharest, that once was part of the Olteniţa line.

The Keystone/tubular train had 7 85 foot, P85k 82 seat coaches and an HP53 power car with 2 V12 Cummins diesels rated at 400 HP each and producing 265 kW each of 440 V 60 Hz 3-phase power, The cars also had pass-through steam lines for heating conventional cars which usually trailed the tubular cars.

Commuter cars were in captive service and generally stayed in the commuter area and were not interchanged. Long distance cars could be interchanged and go anywhere in the USA. They needed the standard system of lighting and heating.

Phil Mulligan

That's because of the South Shore's origins as an "interurban electric railway", an industry that really grew out of the street railway industry. Like the streetcar lines, the interurbans sought to get cheap right-of-way close to their customers by seeking franchises to run in the public streets. It's just luck that the South Shore ended up with so much freight traffic, they certainly did not initially seek it out, and that the cities along the route never objected to running freight trains in the street. As it was, the street running in East Chicago was resolved in the 1950's, street trackage was abandoned in South Bend in the early 70's, and the current work will eliminate the remaining segment in Michigan City.

The title sayes '60's, but according to a comment (and some of the images that I've seen in the past), might be '50's up to the '70's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQrpMyn0V9c
Rairoading was more advanced in U.S.A. that I thought. Which get me close to the point where I want "to do like a train" ("a face ca trenul" means to get really mad).
Those old electric comuter trains set by whom where operated?
When you see the old electric locomotive and that new office building you can see that they are from a very differnt era.
The boxcar locomotive, up untill they where in use?

Dind't know that in Ohoio where more interurban electric lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn-z9QlC3Rk
That stainless stell single motor unit looks quite modern.
I wonder if the P.C.C. streetcar was on the Shaker Heights line.

djl,

Here is a RYPN thread that addresses many of your questions: http://rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37732

The excellent UtahRails.net has a two part article on the evolution of HEP and train heating in the 20th century: https://utahrails.net/pass/dynamos-hep.php

Do you know of a similar on-line resource for any continental European railroads?

The video shows mainly rail in the Cleveland area. The single-unit rapid transit cars are from Cleveland's Rapid Transit System; the PCC's were from the Shaker Heights Ststem (a suburb of Cleveland). The older arch-roof center-entrance cars are ex-Cleveland streetcars rebuilt th operate on the Shaker Heights System. BTW the steam engines are Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4's.

Many of the electric cars are in the Northern Ohio Railway Museum collection:
http://www.trainweb.org/norm/equip.htm

Phil Mulligan

Shaker Heights do still uses some kind of streetcars. I think is quite a unique suburb in U.S.A.
As far as I know, there isn't a topic about history of passanger heating in Europe. To be honest, I dind't looked to see if is there is one such topic. In U.S.A. you used low pressure or high pressure on steam heating?
Penn Station in N.Y.C. used Luxfer prisms?
When where the last 6 axle cars where used. 4 axle car becamed standard by the ''30's, but when the last 6 axle cars went out of use?
Two Sundays ago I got for free (it was abandoned in a flea market) a 1927 German book about some technologies used in Europe in U.S.A. I don't know German (only a few words), but there where quite a few pictures of U.S.A. rolling stock: steam locomotive, passanger cars, streetcars. Maybe I will scan image from it in the future. I've seen again in the book images of vacuum cleaning seats ... in luxury trains it was quite a thing. Anyway, very nice images there... you had allmost the best in rail transport!

I believe some of the topic is covered in the John White 'American passenger car" volumes. I believe that by the age of 12-car and longer heavyweight and then streamlined cars, typical steam line pressure was ~200psi.

While you are on this subject, there are some very interesting discussions on the Web about 'steam-ejector air conditioning' which the Santa Fe (no stranger to extremely hot weather!) used extensively.


Many buildings in New York used these, particularly for 'vaults' under the sidewalks that would otherwise have to be lit with gaslight or electricity. A traditional approach to this was to use tapered round heavy glass 'bullseyes' set in the concrete sidewalk, to let light through. The Luxfer prism was arranged to spread the light laterally at the bottom, giving better distribution. Meanwhile, there were reasons to ensure that no one 'down below' could look upskirt at pedestrians, so the "view" had to be distorted without using privacy-glass frosting or patterns (which 'waste light' that could otherwise be lighting something...).


The real change from "6 to 4-wheel trucks" on passenger cars took place with the introduction of 'streamlined' lightweight cars to replace older heavyweight steel cars. But even then, six-wheel-truck cars continued to be built where car weight demanded more axles -- notably in the various 'Superdome' cars. IIRC Southern Pacific had articulated diners with a six-wheel-truck doing the job under a heavy car end.

I have seen comparatively little written about equipment used to clean and 'turn' cars between scheduled moves. But I have seen one interesting picture of trolley maintenance, where the cleaner walked to and from the job wearing a backpack vacuum... presumably DC motored.

Bacpack vacum cleaner? Never thought it could exist such thing in the days, but the past and you Americans always amaze me.
I know about steam ejectors. Before them, I never thought you can obtain cool with steam. With a centralized heating system, they could be used in buildings in the summer.
Articulate dining cars? I know about articuled locomotives, motorailers, streetcars... but.
About luxfer prism (vault, sidewalk) light I found in an old (circa 1930) German book. I realized that they could sent light in a different direction, but since that book uses Fraktur, not Antiqua (Latin) alphabet, I didn't realized that that r wirth a , under is in fact x. Only after I found the name in "Arhitectura R.P.R." magazine I realized the name. So quite a few stations in the U.S.A. used it. In Romania I've seen them only in some pre-communist apartamen buildings, but never realited that they could deflect the light.
There where any rail companies, that besides owning repair shops, some manufacturing shops, owned such thing as restaurants, hotels, farmlands?