Dallas will be inaugurating the Oak Cliff Streetcar line supposedly in mere weeks. Brookville Equipment was awarded the contract for a new, modern streetcar of a type they have not previously built.

There has been no information and no pictures of the cars and yet they are due in Dallas any day. Has anyone seen the cars either at Brookeville or loaded and in transit to Dallas? Pics would be appreciated. They had a very tight schedule and there was considerable doubt as to whether the deadline could be met. Thanks.

AN

Never mind. Apparently it's already here.

Some mention of Dallas Cars on their webpage

http://www.brookvillecorp.com/streetcar-modern.asp

Yup. We've been watching the webpage for quite some time but there are zero pictures of the new car. Everything on the website is a mockup or a computer rendering.

I am quite surprised the thing got built and shipped without any pictures on the internet.

I knew that Brookville had gotten into the streetcar rehabilitation business, and had built Perley Thomas replica cars for New Orleans. But I didn't realize that they had built the two "Red Cars" for Disney's California Adventure. Of course they can't say that because they are contractually prohibited from saying that.

I recall the original Brookville Locomotive Co. from when I was a kid. My grandparents had a hunting camp near Brookville, and we'd been to town many times. I heard about Brookville Locomotive, and couldn't believe it. There was a locomotive shop in town? How had I missed that?!?

The next visit to town, my patient grandfather took me to the address. I was expecting LaGrange or Lima I guess. What I found was a small truck shop, or at least what looked like one. The only indication of locomotives was the very small combination truck loading ramp and test track that had about 6 or 8 rails on it for all the various guages they built.

inside the shop was a "critter" being either built or rebuilt, maybe the latter. They were kind to a young boy and his grandfather and gave me a tour of the entire "plant" (that took under 2 minutes) and then visited with us a wile and answered my probably many questions. I think at the time they were working on the "trailer tramp" concept they had, sort of an RDC for TOFC uses, for hauling a few trailers on branchlines and the like. It never caught on, probably due to those things called 'semis" that could do the same thing without tracks and unloading ramps.

Thought this might be of interest here:

http://www.brookvillecorp.com/88-ton-di ... porate.asp

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/mec ... channel=35

Who is going to start with plans to preserve this unit in 20 or 40 years?

(Heading for the bomb shelter under the Greenbrier. . .)

Brookville's newest product:



http://dartdallas.dart.org/2015/03/23/photos-see-the-brand-new-state-of-the-art-dallas-streetcar/

Articulated with no wheels in the midsection and only a single two axle truck to keep the front and rear level. So the points of articulation have to be rigid in terms of pitch while allowing free yaw.

The 'original' shop for historic Brookville locomotives was downtown, beside the creek, and just like you said, not much bigger than a truck shop, and a very odd looking collection of multi-gauged track. They had no outside rail connection. Google Earth on 4 South Pickering street in Brookville, that was the site.
That site was flooded out, they relocated out to the new industrial park (look for 196 Evans St.), and also got a direct connection onto the ex-Shawmut now Buffalo & Pittsburgh.
The have a very nice shop, excellent office area, full rail access.

G&W's Brookville Shops are just to the southwest, that's the original shops for the Pittsburg & Shawmut. There's significant loco rebuilding going on there as well.

They also have the most unbelievable multi-gauge turntable you've ever seen instead of a bunch of dual-gauge switches. I think it has seven different track gauges on it. It seems kinda nuts, but it's much more practical than switches for all those gauges.

They've done some very 'different' projects from replacement steam locomotive tender shells to the PCC rebuilds for SEPTA, the various genset locomotives, and the commuter locomotives. Oh yeah, and a lot of mining equipment, still, for underground mining on rails.

Yes, that's it. The plant seems to have changed quite a bit, probably after the flooding.It's been a long time and I was young, but I vaguely recall it looking more like the small brick building across the street at 5 South Pickering. At first glance I thought maybe that was it. Then I went into Google Street view and discovered that for whatever reason the multi-gauge loading track is still in place at 4 South Pickering, so that must be it, even though I don't remember is as being that large back then.

And some mining equipment on rubber tires.

By the way, here is the link to Brookville's home page.