I am looking for an electric car heater, and rope guard for the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum #10 the heater had mounting holes spaced at 25.5 inches by 6.5 inches. I am also looking for bars that would go over the windows to protect them from errant debre we are missing one from each door on the freight side of the trolley. The bars are oddly curved so just using straight mettle rods would not really fit in.

more pics

In the close-up photo directly above, it appears to be what used to be a stock mill section I know as "wagon iron". About 3/4" wide with a broad radius face and rounded edges, it was often used to face rub strips on the interior of wagons; the exterior of streetcars, and also to cover the line of tacks on canvas roof on streetcars, carriages, and early automobiles. Unfortunately, I think it's now an obsolete section. If you only need a short piece, it might be easiest to just machine it from mild steel bar stock.

How about driving down the Connecticut River valley and visit your colleagues at the two Connecticut trolley museums? I'll bet if you ask nice, they might have a spare heater of some vintage and maybe even the rope guard. The rope guards would be easy enough to reproduce by machining brass if it came to that. It might help grease the skids if you offered a donation to their general fund or something like that.

Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine might also be of some help.

If you contact the Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven, ask for Bill Wall. If anyone in New England can help you, Bill can.

Thanks!

I had some time today, so did some leg work on the "wagon iron." Thanks to the folks on the Practical Machinist web site, I now know that the proper name for this section is half oval. Plugging that into Google, I find this supplier has it in 3/4" width, which is what your window guards look to be.

http://www.anvilmag.com/ad/bayshore.htm

While this was a stock section at one time, it no longer is, and is now difficult to find. It is still used by boat builders, but only in brass, bronze, or 316 stainless, all of which are, to quote one of my replies, "breathtakingly expensive."

Since this material had many uses for both trolley step nosing, rub strips, and the edging along the top of tender cisterns, I am going to start another thread using the words Half Oval so that future searches can hopefully find it.

Streetcar heaters are usually designed to run on 120 volts, but they are insulated for 600 volts. If you get 120 volt heaters, there will have to be five in series if the trolley voltage is 600 volts. There were heaters designed to run on 600 volts, they were usally cab heaters, but they are rare. If the element on whatever heater you come up with is broken, which is not uncommon, it can be repaired. The high temperature string inside the heating coil is the biggest challenge. I think Scott Davis at PTM may be working on heaters right now. He is probably your best sorce of first hand experience.

Just linking Dennis Storzek's "Half Oval" thread for easy reference.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33373