There are 20 - plus operating electric railway museums in North America. All but one or two have an out-and-back demonstration electric railway line, as opposed to a giant one-way loop. At the moment only five of these have turning loops at both ends of the line to allow prototypcal operation of single-ended cars, such as most PCC's. I say at the moment because the sixtn one, the National Capital Trolley Museum line is temporarily out of service while being partially relocated.

The trivia part is that these five operations with loops have four different track gauges! Only Seashore and Edmunton are standard gauge. In ascending order by gauge, the others are: Halton County ( 4' 10 7/8"), Pennsylvania Trolley Museum ( 5' 2 1/2") and the Baltimore Streetcar Museum (5'-4 1'2").

The fifth gauge used by North American Trolley Museums is 3'-6" used on the one-way loop at Orange Empire, and that loop is dual gauge!

At the moment I don't think anyone is using a reversing wye at the end of the line instead of a loop, but I hear a rumor that the relocated terminal at National Capital will be using a wye. Can anyone confirm?

The Midwest Threshers also runs a standard gauge trolley loop.

You are of course both correct. I should have made it clearer that I was talking about end-of-line turning loops, not large one-way loops. Turning loops allow a car to be turned end-for-end and placed on the same track. I confused the issue with Orange Empire, but wanted to get one more track gauge mentioned!

However this gives me an excuse to continue Trolley Turning Trivia well beyond the point of reasonableness.

In addition to the Museums with two turning loops, there are several more with only one, not useful for operating single-ended cars, but good for turning cars end-for-end on occasion. (Shore line, Museum of Transport and Rio Vista come to mind). So there are about 15 turning loops, but only three wyes!

There is a small radius wye in Tuscon, which is in the middle of the street(!), and a new one at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. The only electrified wide radius one (capable of turning standard railroad equipment also) is at IRM. Orange Empire has a wide-radius wye, but only two legs are currently electrified.

Of course there is one more way to turn cars around, but I don't think we will see an electrified turntable, like the one shown below, in the near future!

Pete Schmidt

No wye is planned for turning cars on a regular basis at National Capital Trolley Museum. There is a wye within the visitor center loop as a function of the track design that allows cars to circle the loop vs. heading outbound onto the mainline.

Wesley

I could be wrong on this, but doesn't Nelson also have turning loops at both ends? I think this became an issue when they got their BCER Birney running, because the Belgian truck under it had a lengthy wheel base and would bind up on their loops. Fortunately that car is double-ended though!

Our development/redevelopment plan requires changes in the loop. The loop currently goes around the interior of the original 10 acres of the Museum. Until it was completed it operated as an out and back with service in one direction from the Museum store to a connection the the "main-line" and the standard gauge streetcars.

The access to the 42" (Los Angeles Railway) carbarn is up a street scape scene with the track off-set for future double tracking. The ultimate build-out is for the track to be double tracked and extended to the north and south with turning loops; this will replace the oval loop. One of the loops will be near "barn four" displaying standard gauge equipment. Over the years there have been several proposals to connect with the track in front of the Museum store and circle the "park." All of this is still several years off in the future and subject to change until constructed.

There are times when the loop is operated with double-end cars with an out and back operation due to track construction or maintenance. Currently because the 40 year-old track in front of the store is being reconstructed we have an out and back operation from in front of the carbarn (across the park from the store), down the street to the loop and then around the rear part of the loop to terminate about 50 feet or so from the start. Then the next trip reverses the operation.

As noted the Western Railway Museum has a turning loop on the property end of our line.

However in the future, there is a plan to build a turning loop for Interurban sized equipment down near the south end of our Sacramento Northern right of way.

A couple of miles of track have to be rehabbed and electric wire has to go up in order to do this. But that is the current plan.

Several years ago I rode the Montreal observation car at the Conn Trolley Museum which was and is an out and back operation. And then then I rode the other Montreal observation car at Seashore Trolley Museum which had just opened their Talbott Loop. Some difference I'll tell you!

I do wish that more museums had the space for loops or wyes. There are a lot of single end cars that could be operated for the public if there was a good way to turn them around. A street car wye is pretty short. We used to have one on Muni's J Church line until they extended it to Balboa Park station.

At Rio Vista there is the high speed CRANDIC Interurban that has been restored and it gets very little operation as it has to run backwards to get home after each trip.

The solution for running the F Line in San Francisco with a number of single end PCCs was to build a loop around the block or several blocks at the Castro end. It is quite a ride!

I just rode one of the new to the system cars from Newark, NJ which is painted for Minneapolis where that car actually ran in its youth.

The Market Street Railway web site has a lot of recent information on F Line doings.

And I suppose the rarest way to turn a car is the hand powered narrow gauge turntables we have on the Powell Street cable car line. The California Street Cable Railway uses double end cars so they are no problem to turn. Not even a trolley pole to turn there!

Ted Miles