I found this web page with the title "Return of the Ithaca Trolley: A History of Ithaca's Future." Is this wishful thinking or is there something to this?

http://www.ithacahours.com/9208.html
wbaoffice@ameritech.net

> I found this web page with the title
> "Return of the Ithaca Trolley: A
> History of Ithaca's Future." Is this
> wishful thinking or is there something to
> this?

I used to live in Ithaca. Plenty of lunatics of one sort or another. It's just science fiction.

Thanks for the link - that's one of the most interesting and bizarre articles I've seen in a while, and the question of whether streetcar service can be restored to some cities where it flourished decades ago is an intriguing one.

"Is this wishful thinking or is there something to this?"

I would say both. Several cities in the U.S. that are smaller than Ithaca (pop 29500) have trolley lines: Issaquah WA (pop 7700) and Manheim PA (pop 5000) come to mind. However, those trolley lines are run more as tourist lines than as public transportation, and are not operated full time. The smallest city I can think of with a full-time streetcar transportation system is Kenosha WI (pop 80300), whose streetcars are very rarely filled and are often deserted. (To be fair, some of the housing developments along the route are still under construction.) I'm not sure that a streetcar system in such a small city is liable to be successful, although I'm eager to be proven wrong.

The article is pretty interesting. The author apparently has cars with dynamic brakes in mind (exactly how this works isn't really clear), ruling out truly old-fashioned American-type wood cars. The Bombay roof envisioned ought to make the car look pretty interesting, as should the "flowers, banners and flags, wind-spinners... and hand-woven lace curtains" festooning it. Why an electric car's running lights ought to be solar-powered isn't obvious. Anyone who has tried giving a lecture on a noisy wooden streetcar in motion can tell you that the idea of regular "trolley lectures" (these to be given by "whoever is inspired" - where I ride the train, we call this "haranguing") isn't going to be easy. The idea of citizens gleefully and unanimously accepting a tax on their gas to provide for the trolley is a little suspect, as is the suggestion that the existence of the trolley line will net Cornell University $1 million in donations. Also odd is the section that claims NYDOT "has since realized that, because of oil dependence, highways get us nowhere" and decides to build trolley lines instead of highways. Hmm. My favorite part of the article, though, is the ominous quoting of the Robert Louis Stevenson line "It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive." Maybe, but I'd like to arrive, too...

All in good fun. :-)

Frank Hicks

Preserved North American Electric Railway Cars
fullparallel@wideopenwest.com

The
> author apparently has cars with dynamic
> brakes in mind (exactly how this works isn't
> really clear), ruling out truly
> old-fashioned American-type wood cars.

But not old-fashioned European-style wood trams. National Capital Trolley Museum has some nice examples of German trolleys which were equipped for dynamic or regenerative braking; in fact; I think their Berlin car has only dynamics and a gooseneck handbrake--no compressed air at all. Maybe one of the NCTM readers can correct me if I'm off base...

eledbetter@rypn.org

Ithaca is certainly a good place for dynamic brakes. It has the steepest streets of anyplace I know of where trolley cars actually ran. It was said that they knurled the track to increase traction. How nice if the trolleys have suddenly come back by magic. Bob Reich


RJReich@aol.com

> Ithaca is certainly a good place for dynamic
> brakes. It has the steepest streets of
> anyplace I know of where trolley cars
> actually ran.

Not only trolleys. The Lackawanna's Ithaca Branch featured a switchback to get into town. This line survived into the mid 1950's. There were even football specials well into the diesel era that traversed the line.

Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society

tstuy@eldcps.org

All four of our European motor cars have only dynamic and hand brakes (Berlin 5954. Dusseldorf 955, Graz 120, Vienna 6062). The Vienna trailer car has a solenoid-type brake activated by the dynamic braking on the motor car. A very effective and efficient system.

Wesley

> The

> But not old-fashioned European-style wood
> trams. National Capital Trolley Museum has
> some nice examples of German trolleys which
> were equipped for dynamic or regenerative
> braking; in fact; I think their Berlin car
> has only dynamics and a gooseneck
> handbrake--no compressed air at all. Maybe
> one of the NCTM readers can correct me if
> I'm off base...


National Capital Trolley Museum

Frank,

Maybe some RYPN'ers can add to this, but weren't regenerative brakes (dynamics) first developed for electric railroads?

Rob

> The
> author apparently has cars with dynamic
> brakes in mind (exactly how this works isn't
> really clear),

trains@robertjohndavis.com

> Frank,

> Maybe some RYPN'ers can add to this, but
> weren't regenerative brakes (dynamics) first
> developed for electric railroads?

> Rob

My 1915 Electric Railway Handbook has listings for these subjects in use on the electrics ... after all the average Dismal locomotive is just an electric locomotive dragging its own substation along.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

> Maybe some RYPN'ers can add to this, but
> weren't regenerative brakes (dynamics) first
> developed for electric railroads?

I believe that's true. This was one of the selling points for the Milwaukee Road electrification - for part of the mountainous route the trains were going downhill, and employing dynamic brakes on the electrics made it possible to feed current back into the grid. This was set up so that it made the kw/hr meters run backwards, and saved the Milwaukee Road something like 25% off its electric bill. Dynamic brakes were common on European streetcars, but were hardly ever used in the U.S. until the PCC. The article referred to "generating electricity" and I'm not sure how much work it would take to implement a Milwaukee Road-type system.

Frank Hicks

fullparallel@wideopenwest.com

Hey Frank,
Can an AC system feed the power back or is it just for a DC system ??

lamontdc@adelphia.net

The Greek by Brill car (sort of) at Charlotte Trolley is equipped with Dick Kerr controllers - British - which include regenerative braking points on the controllers. That and hand brake wheels was all it had when it came to Charlotte all those many years ago as a display for the lobby of a festival marketplace.

Chris and the guys have had it up and running in the past couple years and it will drag her down pretty quick to a point - other braking systems required to come to a full stop.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

First, we need to distinguish between dynamic and regenerative braking.

"Dynamic" braking refers to essentially reversing the motors and dissipating whatever braking power is generated in resistance grids. Electric cars generally already have grids for controlling acceleration; a Diesel with dynamic brakes has resistance grids just for that purpose, usually with large blowers to keep them cool. A dynamic braking controller for a streetcar is only marginally more complicated, and I'm not sure why it wasn't more popular in the U.S. The West Penn was notable for dyamic brakes.

"Regenerative" braking means that the braking power generated is fed back into the trolley wire to reduce the system's electric bill. (Obviously, not for Diesels.) The problem here is that you have to regulate the output to slightly higher than the nominal trolley voltage. But there's a price to be paid for the extra complications. It may make sense if you're braking a long freight train down a mountain, as on the Milwaukee, but for a single streetcar the minimal power generated just isn't worth the trouble. Although this seems to be what the author of the Ithaca fantasy had in mind.

> Hey Frank,
> Can an AC system feed the power back or is
> it just for a DC system ??

One of the advantages of a synchronous A.C. motor is that it automatically becomes a generator when it overspeeds. As a result, three-phase systems were widely used in Europe. If the A.C. is being rectified on the engine, of course, there's no way to regenerate the A.C. With a commutating A.C. traction motor, it should be possible to regenerate A.C. and send it back through the transformer, but you would be faced with problems of controlling the voltage again. I'm not aware of any single-phase A.C. installations in the U.S. with regenerative brakes, does anyone else know?

Hope this helps.

Montreal equipped twenty heavyweight cars of their 1325 class with dynamic braking for service on the Mountain line in 1930. The cars were recognizable by the bank of extra resistor grids under the floor. The four “Golden Chariots” were also equipped in 1931 although they were never used in regular service due to safety concerns in the tunnel. Specifications required GE K-35 controllers, Westinghouse 533 motors and Westinghouse air brakes. The circuit breakers were replaced with reclosing line switches. The line descended 470 feet in 6,200 feet and the speed was fixed at 12 m.p.h. on a 10% grade. The dynamics were applied by operating a controller style handle separate from the main control stand to the left of the operator. More than six million passengers were carried in the twenty-eight years the line operated with no mishaps or injuries. Of the 20 cars modified, only 1339 remains at Delson, QC.

A C.R.H.A. charter trip on October 5, 1957, the day before the line ceased operation, saw observation car number 1 make the trip up the mountain. It is not known when, if ever, the car had last descended the hill. As a result, when the dynamic brakes were cut in, the fifty odd (!) passengers thought they were doomed to become the first casualties as they were enveloped in a cloud of smoke as the years of accumulated crud on the resistors burnt off! None-the-less, once the smoke cleared, the dynamics worked as they were meant to and the rest of the ride down was smooth and uneventful.

All four observation cars have been preserved, 1 and 3 at Delson, 2 at Kennebunkport ME and 4 at East Windsor CT.

I had a graphic demonstration of dynamics while operating car 997 on the Lachine line (PRW) on November 2, 1957. This line was mostly tangent with welded rail. Cruising along with the controller wide open, I crested a slight grade and the circuit breaker, located over my head, blew. It appears that the motors were now feeding back to the line and resulted in the operation of the breaker. Newer cars would do the same thing as they reached the bottom of underpasses with the controller wide open. The resulting noise and flash of light from under the car would make the passengers jump every time.

neilpr@sympatico.ca