Question: Were two axle Birney's normally furnished with two trolley poles, or did some of them have a single pole that was "swung around" when changing ends? I noticed that Ft. Collins #21 has two poles and that kind of surprised me.

Les

Les, I think the era of the double end, single truck streetcar with a single pole predated the Birney car era. Birney cars you see with only a single pole are probably single end birney cars, which ran in quite a few different cities. Louisville for example had a series of Cincinnati-built single end Birneys, which had only one pole.

Some properties had Birneys that looked like double end Birneys ("entrance doors" in the rear), but they never had control equipment placed in the end.

Pacific Electric single truck Birneys had only a single pole, but like everything else on PE, were double-ended (PE was one of the few properties to use double end PCC cars). One story says that they originally had two poles, but went to single after some bad experiences on rough track north of Pasadena. Birneys bounce a lot anyway, and according to the story, this track was so bad it would bounce the "front" pole out of its hook and cause it to snag the overhead. A photo from 1920 shows a Birney with two poles, but the official diagrams from 1931 show just one on all three groups. Interurbans Special 28 makes no mention of any reason for removing one pole, and some PE experts discount the "bouncing pole" theory.

Not that we haven't operated our car single pole here in Fort Collins. There have been a couple of times i can think of that our motormen have turned one of the poles into a pretzel. Our #21 is now put up for the season in the new trolley barn at 1801 W. Mountian Ave. We hope to eventually build track to the old barn at Cherry and Howes Streets and keep both of them there then after.

Roger, will #25 have the same or different-era FCMRy livery as #21 when it's outshopped for service?

It is our intent to do car #25 up in the livery it had when the line ceased operation in 1951. Number 21 was the first car to operate in Fort Collins in 1919. Number 25 was the last car to operate in 1951.