http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/hera ... S1.article

The characterization of "trolley car" misleads one into believing the museum has the genuine article with track and wire. After a web and museum site search, I am unable to find any confirmation that this organization has an operable streetcar.

Sloan

If you go to the jolietmuseum's website (link near bottom of the article) they talk about a `Virtual Ride on a Replica Trolley' what ever that means. I would like to hear from someone that has gone to the museum and seen this trolley ride.

Rich C.

Rich,

I'll bet that they have one of damn rubber tired fake cable cars that are now operating all over the place.

Even here in San Frnacisco, people see them go by and grab their camera and shoot away. "Oh look there goes a Cable Car!

I do get emotional when people create fake history that does not portray the real thing when people have wrked hard to preserve the real thing!

Ted Miles

Ted -

I agree with you 100%. The problem isn't only in San Francisco, it's everywhere! The manufacturers of these vehicles call them "trolleys" so that is what the people who operate them call them too. WE know that "trolley car" or "cable car" is a misnomer, but the average person couldn't care less. Perhaps what we have to do is to convince the manufacturers of these vehicles to come up with a different "cute" name. Anyone have any ideas?

Les

Many years ago, I came up with an appropriate name for these contraptions.

THEME BUS

as in, when someone refers to one of them as a trolley; Oh, you mean a theme bus.

Why not call 'em what used to be the thorn in the side of the streetcar companies, "JITNEY" ??

We used to have a member at OERM who drove a VW bug and sometimes used mock-German terms. He referred to a fake streetcar as "Eine Ersatz Strassenvagen". I know of at least two "trolleys" that don't fit the strict definition but do run on rails: One is based at Sinissipee Park in Rockford IL; it appears to be "scratch built" and runs on an abandoned RR track. As I recall, it's powered by a VW engine. The other, which I rode last year, is in El Reno OK; it started out back in the 1920's as third-rail powered "Strafford" car 165 on the Philadelphia & Western and is now powered by a propane fueled GMC V-8 engine, running on apparently new track from the ex-Rock Island depot to downtown El Reno. The El Reno folks call it "The Only Rail-based Trolley in Oklahoma" even though even in its electric days it never carried a trolley pole. To add to the mix, the New York Museum of Transportation has two "Straffords" with trolley poles added in recent years. And there are some genuine SF cable cars which were mounted on truck chassis many years ago after the big cutbacks in the 1950's.
Earlier this year my wife and I attended the "Pageant of the Masters" at Laguna Beach, CA. Several fake "trolleys" shuttled between the pageant site and the parking areas, and it appeared that there were no two alike, indicating that building bogus trams is somewhat of a "cottage industry". Some of them had gongs that looked like they came from a boxing arena, and a few had traditional "white on black" roll signs. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a website for fake trolley fans somewhere.

Yes, this is an ongoing problem. Also, while we're talking about alternate types of rail-based equipment,don't forget the internal combustion streetcars in Galveston.

At the East Troy Electric RR museum, I would often get calls from people looking for a "trolley" to rent for their wedding. After a short but polite conversation, during which I would educate them on how our trolleys ran on railroad tracks and couldn't come to their church, I would then refer them to the local tour bus company which operated these kinds of vehicles.

There was one semi-amusing incident when one of our trainmen got into a heated debate with this woman who insisted that we didn't have real trolleys, that she knew what a trolley was because she had ridden on so many of them on vacation.

One minor correction. The Strafford cars did carry trolley poles when first operated on the P&W. They converted to straight third rail operation in the early 30's after being heavily modified. When we converted car 164 back to trolley pole operation, we found the places on the roof where the poles had been originally mounted. Additionally, the knife switch which selected between trolley pole and third rail operation was still in the electric cabinet on the platform, although no longer used. There's a picture on this site.

http://www.davesrailpix.com/hicks/htm/hicks179.htm

Jack

Technically a doodlebug?

dave

"Trolley Car Treasurey" by Frank Ransome has a photo of a gasoline powered rail streetcar in 1920s land boom Miami, Fla.

A shortline RR in Georgia - I forget which - converted a single truck Birney body into a doodlebug. There's a famous picture out there somewhere.

dave

It is my understanding that the term "doodlebug" comes from the sound the vehicle's engine makes. So........a Galveston-style streetcar couldn't be classified a doodlebug since its diesel engine doesn't make the engine-idling doodlebug sound.

Sloan

Steven Torrico is the doodlebug expert - perhaps he will chime in here. He's building a prototype diesel hydraulic model edwards car now. Don't know what it sounds like.....

dave

Jeez… I don't think so. I was always under the impression it was their appearance. "Doodlebug" in the English language usually refers to several species of insects or small terrestrial crustaceans; the larvae of the ant lion, woodlice, or pill bugs. All are notable for having hard rounded shells and would be familiar to the rural folk that inhabited the areas where motorcars ran. I can see, as they watched this arched roof "thing" doodling through the fields toward the station, how they could make an association with the doodlebugs in their woodpile.



Doodlebug. If it had marker lamps, it would look like a Brill car.

The Montgomery County Traction Co. in Montgomery County, Pa. ran through what was then a very rural area north of the Schuylkill River and south of the Reading's Bethlehem Branch and the parallel Lehigh Valley Transit Allentown-Norristown interurban route. Its arch-roofed cars were known as "wogglebugs." Might have been a variation of doodlebug.