THE ROCKHILL TROLLEY MUSEUM COLLECTION MOVES INTO A NEW GENERATION

Rockhill Furnace, PA – The Rockhill Trolley Museum (http://www.rockhilltrolley.org), the operating entity of Railways To Yesterday, Inc., a 501(c) (3) non-profit educational corporation, is happy to announce its plans to acquire a 1981 vintage Light Rail Vehicle to make its collection more relevant to younger generations.

The Rockhill Trolley Museum is proceeding with the acquisition of a U2 Light Rail Vehicle formerly used in San Diego, California on a system popularly known as the San Diego Trolley. These vehicles were constructed by Siemens-Duewag of Dusseldorf, Germany in 1981 for the opening of the first new-generation Light Rail system in the United States and have served well throughout their three decades of service. These vehicles have been maintained to a very high standard and are in excellent condition. Unlike many vehicles from colder climates, these vehicles have never been exposed to the damaging effects of operation on streets treated with deicing chemicals.

The museum’s collection presently includes 22 electric railway vehicles dating from 1895 to 1947. The acquisition of a U2 Light Rail Vehicle enables the museum to completely tell the story of the electric trolley car from its earliest forms, through the era of wooden equipment, steel equipment, lightweight and high-speed vehicles, PCC cars, and finally to the present day and the corresponding resurgence of the trolley car across the United States in its modern form.

Thanks to a unique partnership with a corporate entity, the Rockhill Trolley Museum, is looking at this acquisition as a monumental step towards ensuring the collection remains current, relevant to future generations and, perhaps most importantly, attracting more youth to rail preservation.

Despite the tremendous offer of support committed thus far, an additional $10,000 must be raised to fund the costs of moving this large vehicle across the United States and preparing it for future operation as part of the museum’s fleet of historic equipment.

The acquisition of this vehicle would not be possible without the support of UTCRAS of Morton, Pennsylvania, including both with regards to logistics as well as through a substantial financial contribution. Even with this tremendous offer of assistance, the museum will need additional support from its members and friends to cover the costs of moving such a large vehicle across the United States and preparing it for immediate display and eventual operation.

The Rockhill Trolley Museum is one of the oldest continuously operating trolley museums in the Middle Atlantic, having operated trolleys every year since 1962. The museum offers a very scenic three mile round trip ride along scenic Blacklog Creek. For more information on the museum, as well as information on how to contribute to museum projects, when to visit, and how to become a member, please visit http://www.rockhilltrolley.org.

UTCRAS has provided support to the rail transit industry since 1982. UTCRAS is an AAR Certified Wheel, Bearing, and Axle Shop and has performed high quality work for railroads, transit systems, and museums throughout North America. For more information, please visit http://www.utcras.com.

My first reaction was "You're a little late for April Fools!"

My second reaction was "That was built in 1981? Has it really been that long?!? Crap, I'm getting old..."

Wonderful news and what a marvelous addition to the collection. While not as common as PCC cars, these certainly are a huge part of light rail in the last 20th Century.

Next: an Amtrak AEM7 of basically the same vintage? <:-)

It is not difficult to argue that these San Diego cars were the most important step in urban rail transit since WWII.* They spawn new light rail systems up the west coast (San Jose, Portland, and Seattle) and across the country (e.g., Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, two in New Jersey, Norfolk, and Charlotte) with more to come. Cities that had streetcar systems but lost them decades before. They also caused upgrades in still operating older trolley systems, Pittsburgh being probably the best example.

Thus I hope many of these cars populate our trolley museums. They have an important story to teach.


* BART was almost as important for what it spawn.

> BART

Maybe Rockhill can preserve one of those.

Well. They're no stranger to odd gages...

My first thought was "Imagine how far that cash would go towards restoring the Electroliner" - a truly fascination and significant piece of history at Rockhill.

If they wanted something to wrap up the ongoing story, they could likely hold off until something prettier and closer becomes available - even if it's not for 10 to 20 years. Something in NJ or MD, for instance.

Blah. Carry on -

/Mitch

Them what raises the money makes the choices. While I don't know what RTM's master plan is, this is what they wanted, and this is what they're getting. If you think the Liner is a higher priority project, that's fine, but join the group, go to a meeting and express your interest. Offer to help with fund raising/ grant writing etc.

Griping on the Internet about this stuff is like rocking in a rocking chair. It'll give you something to do, but you'll never get anywhere.

Great Job to the RTM crew!
Russ Swinnerton
CRHS Vice President

I love the Liberty Liner, too. I was fortunate enough to get a ride in one of the pair on the "Pig & Whistle" in my youth, and they are impressive. Unfortunately, the only really good place for one to strut its stuff is on the old Red Arrow route to Norristown, and even there the thing was a bit impractical.

The story I was told around Rockhill was that the Liberty Liner uses so much electricity running on their line that "all the lights in Orbisonia and Rockhill Furnace dim when it starts out of the station!" That's a bit of an exaggeration, I think. But at the same time, I know at least one director of operations of a trolley museum that explicitly said that the reason some pieces in the collection are favored for operation over others is to keep the electric bill down, and at times that choice can be the difference between the day being in the red or in the black after the electricity is accounted for.

I must say that I was so surprised that Rockhill grabbed a San Diego car set that I actually thought it was a joke for a minute or three. And part of me is still waiting for the joke to be revealed. Why Rockhill, and not a western trolley museum like Orange Empire, or the "guys who collect everything" like St. Louis or IRM? But I'm going to shut up and applaud them for foresight. Let's hope that some Western guys get their collective acts together, and we're not stuck with some group in San Diego having to go beg Rockhill for "their" Red Car forty years from now!

The only place that an Electroliner could really "strut its stuff" today would be on the Long Island Rail Road. Never going to happen, but fun to dream about.

From my limited experience with electric power companies, I suspect that very rural utilities charge more for spikes in power consumption (demand) than is done in big cities like Baltimore, Md., Washington, D.C., and New Haven, Conn. Some museums don't like to run PCC cars because they're energy hogs compared to old fashioned equipment. That San Diego car may not run much more than the PCC, interurban, and Red Arrow cars have at RTY.

Scranton, Pa. may be 2nd choice as a better place for the Liberty Liner, but I don't have enough money to pay for the transplant.

Do the San Diego cars have any special electronics that will be hard to maintain or replace?

-Mark

Do such cars have "special electronics?" They certainly do. Each successive generation of transit cars has made greater and greater use of modularized circuitry on replaceable boards and has also committed more and more functions to microprocessors with ten of thousands of lines of coded logic. While we at other museums commend RTY for undertaking such a preservation, we might also caution them to grab every possible spare part, service manual, and technical publication they can get their hands on. The same applies to the various test fixtures, special tools, and diagnostic equipment required for such cars. Anyone with a highschool education can analyze and repair a K-control car. With a bit more knowledge, PCCs and similar cars can be dealt with. But keeping a "modern" (i.e., post-1960) transit car operating will require a further level of technical expertise and tools. I hope our friends at RTY have taken that fully under consideration in planning this remarkable acquisition.

I am pretty sure they do not. They have good old resistance switched control. They have 2 monomotors (one on each end truck) , which have been a problem elsewhere but should be fine with the low mileage they will see at a museum.

Another very positive feature is that they were built without air conditioning, but were (I think) later retrofit with air. So some windows can be opened and they can be used in moderate temperatures even if the AC is not working. Of course they are double-ended and Rockwood does not have turning facilities. I think they will not be too bad on currrent draw, being relatively light, and I suspect it would be easy to set the current limiting relay for a lower notching current. I dont know if they have a series--parallel transition, but if so they will only draw half the current if kept below half speed.

They are low-level boarding and, I seem to remember, used permanently mounted on-board lifts to board wheelchairs. This takes one entryway permanently out of service, but that's not a problem in museum service. Many museums are interested in having a car that can accept wheelchairs. They have basically an AAR profile wheel, but several other cars at RTM have big flanges and wide treads as well. One possible issue is that the minimum curve radius is 25 meters (about 82 feet). Most US streetcars would operate on 40' or less. But I don't think RTY has anything sharp on the mainline.

Of course the cars were built in Germany, so parts may be hard to find, but no harder than for 75 year old streetcars!

Sounds like a good deal to me.

I think it's important not to "psych yourself out" too much about all this electronic automation. That blade is double-edged, and the other edge works very much in our favor. I absolutely foresee a day when we're replacing whole cabinets of circuit cards with a single little Arduino, and that is the way things trend. Really the stuff is not that hard to work with, and "kids these days" just go to it like ducks to water.

The reason you think it's hard to work with is inhibitions. Chances are slim that you're going to pick up a book, learn DC electronics, run out to Radio Shack and buy an Arduino kit, and spend evenings making magic smoke until you learn. Which is what it takes to "get it".

While not official, I think when St. Louis Metro's 1000 series Metrolink cars come up for retirement, one will end up at MOT. A couple of choices exist, either the first, or the one President Clinton rode in. However, that'll be a ways off, they are just now getting repainted, running nearly 15-20 years on their original paint jobs.

Maybe one of the Cleveland Breda cars will find a home at IRM one of these days.