Text from a Facebook posting on a page dedicated to Florida trolleys:

The originating page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1008274 ... 1374898778

Robert W. Mann

3 FIRES! WAS GRANDPA STUPID? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN MEMPHIS?
The powerful anti-rail and anti-streetcar lobby would have you believe that our forefathers were idiots. Add to the rhetoric that Memphis and flaming historic streetcars seem to be something of an item, albeit an item not shared with, or desired by any other city.

Memphis with its fleet of beautiful historic streetcars has enjoyed all of the sundry benefits of a modern urban rail system at a bargain basement price. Shockingly, it might have been even cheaper and incident free.

Part of the fault with the flaming 'trolleys' is that they weren't trolleys. In an ill advised plan the old cars were stripped of their trolley poles and modern pantographs were installed. (So technically while the fleet is 'streetcar' it is not 'trolley')The classic controllers were 'modernized' and in the process they skipped circuit breakers whilst bypassing other circuit breakers.

What transpired was a simple hiccup in the system resulted in a power surge, no functional circuit breakers resulted in an immediate small fire and a flashover. Pantographs meant the operator who properly shut down the car could not pull down the contact with the overhead wire. As passengers and operator filed out the flames spread, fed by 600 volts of constant contact.

The fire department roared up and refused to hose the car fire since it was still connected to 600 volts of overhead direct current.

So away went nearly 100 years of slightly modernized history, not once but 3 different times. Finally cooler heads prevailed and Memphis' heritage streetcar system was shut down completely.

Retail and restaurant businesses along the routes noted a 20%-30% loss of patronage, some closed down completely and a revitalized downtown is suffering a great loss. The ugly green Faux Trolley buses have failed to attract the unique ridership.

Finally, the various APTA (American Public Transit Association) historic streetcar committee's were invited to examine the case. What they found went far beyond the shoddy engineering that went into the initial rebuilding of the old cars was epic.
The APTA report looked at staffing levels, training, maintenance, emergency management, parts inventory, and more.

Here are some major findings from the report:

• There does not appear to be a trained trainer with suitable accreditation for training operators and maintainers.

�• We found several maintenance tasks that could only be performed by one person on staff.

�• Scant truing record showing who received truing on what equipment.

�• A large quantity of worn out parts, such as motors, compressors, trucks, and controllers, were found in various states of disrepair.

�• Numerous “defect cards” were found for both cars in the months before their fires.

�• There are little or no records on repairs done to the cars.

�• There is a lack of available maintenance manuals.

�• On some cars inspected, we found the brake systems to be worn out.

�• No dedicated safety person for the trolley system.

�• In the area marked for storage of heavy trolley items such as motors, compressors, etc., there appeared to be no order to the storage method, no tags on equipment, and no record of an inventory.

So heads rolled and the MTA's director who admitted using streetcar funds to maintain the bus fleet was sent packing. The new director, Ron Garrison, is from the award winning TALLAHASSEE FLORIDA, STAR METRO.

Ron Garrison, has fond memories of riding the Streetcars as a boy. He is admittedly an 'electric traction fan.'

Garrison shared an update not only on the progress that's been made, but also the hard work that goes into it.

According to Garrison, the trolleys are being rebuilt essentially from the ground up to guarantee safety (read: no more fires!). He shared countless before and after photos of the trolleys. On the "before" side we saw broken, filthy, worn down trolley parts. We saw pictures of loose wiring and broken seals that screamed "hazard!". In the "after" shots, we saw pristine, tight, organized machine parts.

"We're putting in safety features that will be the new standard for the country," says Garrison.

The moral of the story for any city even considering a return to historic vintage streetcars? Don't reinvent the wheel! Had the Memphis cars been rebuilt as originally designed the trolley pole would have been immediately lowered, breaking electrical contact. No less than two sets of breakers would have killed the power to the controller meaning there would have been no flashover.

Grandpa wasn't stupid!

This is in reference to some problems that plagued the heritage trolley system in Memphis:

http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/238 ... wn-memphis

http://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/ar ... management

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/mat ... id=4452106

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATA_Trolley

The Wife and I just spent a great week in Memphis this spring. Rode the "bus" along the trolley tracks and I never knew the "backstory" about where the real trolleys went. I though it was a cost saving measure.

Sounds like they need a good PE Electrical Engineer on staff full time. There is a reason the other engineering trades (mechanical/software/civil/etc.) refer to Electrical Engineers as "Sparkies"....

Hope they get it figured out... "Electricity: They have been studying it for years and nobody knows how the heck it works...."

Cheers, Kevin, BSEE, MSEE.

Circuit Breakers are cheap, burned out trolley cars, not so much.

I was lucky enough to visit Memphis in 2011, when the streetcars were still running. Someone I know in the vintage streetcar business had been there a year or two earlier and was not pleased at some of the haphazard maintenance. I wasn't aware that the circuit breakers on the Melbourne cars had been bypassed--I just have amateur expertise on streetcar electrical systems (repairing circuit breakers and maintaining Type K controllers), but would wonder what the logic in bypassing the breakers was.

real life towering infernal. You should have air operated pans. You could have an emergency valve to release them from contact. That is a serious safety flaw bypassing the breakers.
Really poor administrating Hope the current team gets it right. Its proven time again the real streetcar works.

You don't need $(#$ engineers. I spend a good part of my job compensating for and re-working what some engineer with clean white hands has 'designed'.

What you need, what you ALWAYS need, is mechanics and technicians and operators that give a damn, feel like they are appreciated, are given the correct tools and training, and their experience is not belittled and diminished because they don't have a college degree, and managers who can assemble and keep a happy team, and a environment where ANY of those people can speak up and have the equipment IMMEDIATELY pulled from service when it gets to an unsafe level, even if it's not convenient. They say most accidents involve MULTIPLE layers of failures, this one was no different.

I was in Memphis for a week in the spring of 2014 and rode the trolleys several times. I can attest that car operators appeared to have received little or no training, just from my own observations of how they operated them. Every one ran their cars extensively on the first or second controller point, which tends to overheat the electrical system. Several of them opened the controller while the brakes were still fully applied, which also tends to overheat things. They also applied the brakes while their controllers were still open and didn't shut off power until the car had come to a "power stop." Normally, that would have knocked out the circuit breaker, but apparently there were none. To my mind, it's no wonder that cars caught fire.

If the maintenance and repair issues as mentioned above are anywhere near the truth, it's amazing there weren't more calamities with these old cars.

Somewhere back in the stacks I have a copy of the RFP for rebuilding the single truck cars from way back..... I didn't bid on that job - it was so full of minutiae such as use only cadmium screws of such and such a style and size here, install them in this way and so on I'd have had to bid three times the cost of doing the job well to cover the time and effort in just assuring I complied. If they are this nitpicky, how did it get from that to the anything goes - competence not required state which led to these issues?

The Memphis debacle was due to basic incompetence, not problems with the technology. Memphis is not known for having competent people in their government or transportation departments. Memphis is not known for taking care of their equipment-most transit agencies have coaches in a variety of conditions when they are disposed of-some running and some not. None of the MATA coaches that they dispose of are in running condition.

"You don't need $(#$ engineers."

If (speculation on my part) this was designed/redesigned by anyone other than a PE electrical engineer and they did not include circuit protection (or approved the intentional bypassing of existing circuit breakers) that is serious incompetence. No PE would sign off on that, they would risk losing their license and their livelihood.

If someone designed (or forgot to design) a proper electrical equipment maintenance program and did not include testing of breakers that would also be incompetence.

If hands on maintenance people removed/bypassed critical circuit protection devices and an inspection/training program (or lack their of) did not catch it that would also be incompetence on the part of management.

Hands on workers around electricity need the proper training, it is the responsibility of management to provide it using engineers when necessary.

And yes you do need competent engineering at the design/certification stages of installing high voltage electrical systems, otherwise people get killed.

Yes I am a degreed electrical engineer, and I have gotten my hands plenty dirty. And I have done major electrical renovations to the house I sleep in every night. And I get it inspected, not because I did anything wrong but just to have a second set of eyes double check my work because my families lives depend on it.

Sounds like Memphis is lucky nobody got killed from electrocution, arc flash or fire, all very common ways to die working around electricity.

Cheers, Kevin.

In MATA, incompetence is endemic at all levels, as is the "not my job" attitude-at least in the maintenance department. One of the APTA inspectors (known personally to me) pointed out a simple safety violation that could have been easily corrected (out of date fire extinguisher inspection tag). The next day, the same inspector noted that the violation had not been corrected. He followed up on the matter and had no reservation about recommending that the streetcars be withdrawn from service.

"Memphis Trolley Stupidity" would have been a better thread title; I almost missed this story...

From what I have heard there were problems at Memphis. These may have included inadequate maintenance, training, design and supervision. But there is also the issue that 600 volt DC can be a problem to work with. An arcing fault may not draw enough current to open either a fuse or circuit breaker. Rate of raise protection at the substation will go a long way in helping to control electrical faults. Even with that, operators and supervisors need to be both trained and willing to deal with arcing faults. When cars with pantograph are operated, regardless of the method used to pull the pan down, there should be an insulated pole with a hook on the end of it available to help get a pan down and/or free of the wire when a problem exist. This same problem may also exist with poles when the catcher rope breaks. The operator should also have phone access to a control center which can turn the trolley voltage off if needed.