1.) How did trolleys originally hook up the electrical connections to there headlights (The ones that had removable headlights).
2.) Anybody have any detailed diagrams of how gravity fed sanders were hooked up
3.)Anyone know the name of and where I can find the brass fittings that went over holes in the tholley to guide ropes through (see pic)

You should get you a copy of "The Elictric Railway Dictionary" by Alvin Richey. It was reprinted in the 1970s and is available on DVD-ROM and probably through Google Books. It is a cyclopedia that has drawings and information about the various hardware in electric cars.

Worth having.

[quote="RCD"]1.) How did trolleys originally hook up the electrical connections to there headlights (The ones that had removable headlights).
[/quote

Simple. They used a single conductor plug, which was a turned wood handle that looked like a file handle with a solid copper rod for the plug. This was inserted into a socket mounted under the dash that was a spring brass tube mounted in a wood block. The plug only made the hot side of the circuit; the ground connection was through the hanging hooks and car body. Motormen were taught (or learned after the first time) not to try to lift the headlight off the car without first unplugging it... or they became the fuse.

Cars fresh from the shop have to have the paint scraped off the top of the headlight bracket, or the light won't light.

Really sophisticated roads, like the North Shore and 'Rorin Engin, used headlights with two plugs... but nope, the second plug wasn't a ground, it was a second hot routed through a resister to provide a dim setting of the light for meets.

If you lift the lamp off the mounting bracket while it is turned on, your body can become the circuit to ground with 600 volts DC in your hands. Many trolley operator Rule Books contained language prohibiting this action.

Usually a dropping resistor of the proper value for the size bulb was in series between a 600 volt source and the headlight. Often it was in a small cage located under the car floor near the headlight plug. Sometimes it was located over the operator's head inside the car. Sometimes it was located next to the controller to serve as a cab heater to warm the operator in the winter. There was no industry standard location.

In some cars the headlight was the same value as car interior lamps. They did not use a separate dropping resistor. The headlight bulb was just another lamp in a 5-light series string. I have seen cars where the headlight was twice the wattage of interior lights and it served as the fifth lamp in two 5-light strings. However I never have seen either of these configurations used with a plug-in headlight.

The older cars did not use electricity to operate the sander. They used compressed air with a control frequently near the operator's brake valve. They also blew air with the sand to remove any clogs that might develop in pipes between the sand box and the sand dispensers in front of the wheels.

It's not the clearest photo but here is the headlight from Lake Shore Electric 151 after PUCO decreed that headlights must be lowered. Four wood screws and the bracket was lowered. The dark line above the headlight is the grounding wire for the headlight bracket ...wood car ya know so it just goes thru a hole in the dasher.
The two wire headlight cord has a large wood plug with a paint brush like handle that plugs in under the anticlimber. One wire is for bright and the other is for dim ... for the cars running in the dark is was lamp for the city and arc for the country. For the daylight runs it was lamp and lamp.

Our car at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum never had air but it did have sanders.

With our car and others that were saved the headlight was removable so as to allow it to be placed on either end door. At the bottom of the light were two adjusting screws to allow for various heights. Notice the "plate" that the screws rest against on the door. The wire leading up to the plug has two prongs. In the other picture the plug is wired to an on/off switch above the motorman's door. As we rebuilt the vestibules our electrician ( 35 yrs with VIA Rail and CN) rewired this "circuit" and tested it. You can almost see the switch if you follow his arm. Works fine as you can notice.

The Insull-era orange cars of the South Shore line ran 32V battery power through their headlights. The cars that retained the removable headlights had a non-grounded mounting strap on the door with a plug-in on the door frame for the headlight cable.



http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?54629

Better than running 1500V, eh?

I don't think anyone ever made a headlight to run off of "line voltage". It makes no difference how you got your 32 volts, from batteries or a headlight resistor it was still 32 volts. I have run interurban arc headlights from 110 VAC and they worked just fine ...but you have to make sure the headlight is isolated from people.

Are South Shore car interior lights 12 125 Volt bulbs in series, to run off the 1,500 Volt Direct Current overhead wire supply?

Sanding on non-air cars was accomplished by gravity and was controlled by a series of levers from a foot pedal at the motorman's position to the sand trap.

I think on South Shore cars, the lighting is powered by the MG set or the batteries, both of which are 48 volts (if I remember correctly)

Oh, no, there's a difference. Pull the headlight and stick a voltmeter on the headlight supply and ground. On a 32V system, the voltage will be ~32V. On a 600V with dropping resistor, the voltage will be ~600V unless there's a full resistor bridge present, in which case it'll be well above 32V in any case because the headlight is expected to be part of the bridge. This distinction is RATHER important to operator safety: lift a 32V headlight off its ground and you are the 32V ground path (who cares). Lift a 600V-wired, resistor fed, 32V headlight off its ground, and you are the 600V ground path (yer dead).

It's all based on how resistor networks work and ohm's law. I'm making it sound complicated, it isn't really. Sketch it out on paper, plug the numbers into ohm's law, and see what happens when the headlight loses its ground. With no current flowing, the resistor doesn't drop any voltage, so the full 600 shows up at the headlight socket.


The battery is 32V (i.e. ~37v at float). The MG set is 1500--->32 and is quite large. basically everything on the car runs on it except for the traction proper.

South Shore fixtures have 2 bulbs. At least one of them runs on the 32V. I haven't circuit chased to see if they have a 1500V circuit, I'm not sure why they would, why bring HV into the lighting circuits when 32 works fine.

Although I am interested in where this is going, I do have to say...



I too would like to know exactly what to call those things. I know the second post on here mentioned about "The Electric Railway Dictionary" , but I was hopping for at least some quick info on them and also possibly where to find such a thing if it is still made?

I'd look them up myself but I don't even know what to call them.

In an age when literally millions of historical documents are available online, including older books, historical research is far easier than even eight years ago when I wrote a Master's Thesis in U.S. History. "Back then" I still had to make many a trip to the University of Louisville Library and Archives, and other archives.

That being said, my point was that the internet allows you to find all kinds of information, especially if somebody gives you a pointer on where to start. The book I mentioned was a hint, to direct the original poster to a source where it was likely pictured. I guess that wasn't good enough, I now am expected to do the research as well.

The item in question is called a "Bell Cord Bushing." The 1911 Edition of the Electric Railway Dictionary has it listed on the page mentioned on the link. It was made by Adlake.