I'd say the straight portion of the MOT line is about 1,300 feet or so, from end to end. The loop adds lenght to the line, but we don't take the PCC through the loop. The line has only one frog, and when the PCC is backing, it trails through the frog (two wires into one). The barn tracks have a pull-off instead of a frog for this reason.

The PCC isn't doing much backing, or going forward these days. The MG set decided to retire a few weeks ago, and the car is in the shop with the MG set at the motor shop being rebuilt.

Hi:

The Minnesota Streetcar Museum has two demonstration railways.
- The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line, located in southwest Minneapolis. This line began operating in late summer of 1971. This railway is about one mile in length. Three of our restored streetcars, all single enders, operate on this line: TCRT No. 1300; Duluth St. Rwy No. No. 265 (ex-TCRT No. 1791); and, PCC TCRT No. 322.
- The Excelsior Streetcar Line, located in the western suburban town of Excelsior, Minn., is 1/2 mile long. We operate two restored streetcars at Excelsior: single end TCRT "gate car" No. 1239; and, Duluth Street Railway No. 78 (LaClede, 1893). No. 78 is double-ended with one trolley pole that we swing around at each end of the line.

Since neither line has the space for a turning loop or wye at the ends, all our restored streetcars, except or No. 78, have to back-pole or half their run. For all the years we've been backpoling at Como-Harriet, I've been told we can count on one hand the times that the pole has gone of the wire when operating in that mode. At the Como-Harriet line we backpole thru one "facing point" overhead wire frog and our line guys have that one set so we really haven't had any problems doing that. We slow down to 5 mph while doing that.

All of our single-ended cars have back-up controls. In the case of the three TCRT "standard" cars (No. 1300, No. 265 and No. 1239), the back-up controls consist of start-stop switches and a brake handle. Therefore the speed of the car is controlled from the front end. This might sound complicated over a one-mile line with hills and curves but our operating procedures are quite specific on who and what happens, when and we've really never had a problem operating like we have for the last 38 years at Como-harriet and ten years at Excelsior.

Thanks!

If I remember correctly, TCRT streetcars use a larger-than-standard wheel, something like 12" or so. I'm sure the large wheel helps with the backup moves.

Yes, TCRT trolley wheels are 7 inches in diameter. All TCRT cars had the large wheels including the PCC cars. I'm sure the larger size helps us.

Thanks!

OK, I couldn't resist. This is for the fringe group who enjoys the minutia and the details that makes our avocation so fascinating. BTW, we cast and machine our own trolley wheels because they are of an odd size.

Here's a close-up of one of our TCRT trolley wheels. There's also a short article on trolley poles in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_pole

One other bit of trivia. For poles equipped with shoes, some lines had a special harp and shoe that rocked in a sort of toggle motion, allowing the shoe to flip over to a position more of a trailing motion when backpoling. You were still pushing the pole, but the shoe was much more forgiving at slow speeds. At one end of our line at IRM we have a frog and diverging wire that allows the pole on a single ended car to be disengaged, and carrying the retriever, the operator can place the pole on this wire to the side of the car. After reversing, the pole looks all wrong, but will track and follow home.

Bob Kutella

Probably the ultimate backwards operation of a single end car was the former C&LE Red Devil cars on CR&IC. Crandic installed a bracket for the trolley retriever on the right-hand side of the car.

The Crandic operator removed the trolley retriever from the rear of the car and put it on the side. He then put the pole on the wire backwards so it was trailing when the car was backing. A metal guard protected the roof canvas from the trolley rope when backing. If the pole dewired, the retriever would yank it down before the overhead wire was damaged.

On C&LE these cars had a simple switch in the rear that would apply power in the first (switching) point only. It was used for reversing cars backpoling on a wye. Crandic installed a full controller in the rear. These cars could run backwards as fast as forward on Crandic using the rear controller.

My understanding is that the fairgrounds did not have a wye or loop for reversing cars. They would come to the fairground facing forward and unload passengers. Then they would back several miles to a wye to reverse then retrun backwards to the fairgounds to pick up passengers. That way the public did not have to ride facing backwards. This bothers some people. (This is second hand verbal information so I cannot vouch for the accuracy.)

So Crandic probably had the ultimate high speed operation backwards of a single-end car.

fk