I just checked the calendar. I have an event at work that weekend. I would like to order a t-shirt and matching party hat. Maybe the event can be skyped?

Wesley

As they say, winter is coming, and so is the ARS show... Maybe a meeting for the Northeastern contingent of N-Cubed is in order?

"The street railway group had a lot to talk about-specifically the Memphis Area Transit Authority car fires that nearly killed vintage trolleys operating on any Federal Transit Authority funded line. From the American Public Transit Association representatives who investigated the fires, the word was that FTA was ready to put in place a 50 year rule similar to the FRA rule for freight cars. It was only because of the intervention of reasonable industry representatives that historic streetcars are not now restricted to operating in private museum settings. The maintenance session focused on the MATA fires, what caused them and what we as an industry need to do to prevent ruinous regulations from being promulgated upon us. Memphis had virtually no maintenance controls in place. Parts were not labled or tagged, what maintenance records they had were incomplete, basic information that was needed to properly maintain the cars was not available. One example was that they had no wiring diagrams for the cars that were burned."

The biggest problem with the Memphis cars was that the operator or the firemen had no way to removed the power collector from the trolley wire in case if an emergency. MATA had replaced trolley poles with a pantograph with no way to pull it down to open the circuit. You cannot depend on a fuse to open the circuit if the arc that started the fires does not draw enough current to blow the fuse. The really basic problem here is that no one in authority at MATA had any experience with streetcars.

True. The pantographs had no latching mechanism. They were entirely dependent on a rope to hold them in the lowered position. In all cases, the motorman pulled the pantograph down. In the two cases where the cars were destroyed, the fire burned through the rope and the pans restored contact with the wire. Also, the fire extinguishers that were on the car were mounted directly adjacent to the controllers. That made them inaccessible once the controllers caught fire (point of origin in each of the fires). It was by the grace of God that no one was killed. As it was, the extinguishers were probably out of date (the ones at the carbarn were found to be out of date). Incidentally, the part that was discovered to have failed on the MATA cars was the 600v line breaker. The line breakers had (over time) essentially welded the contacts together.

Has anything official been published on the Memphis fires,
that we can consult and review?

There was an APTA Peer Review Report that was published and is available online. In the two cases where CCTV video was available, it appeared that there was a fault in the traction circuits of unknown origin that created a massive flashover in both controllers.

One of the problems that the APTA investigators encountered was that the cars were not preserved in the condition that they were in immediately following the fires. The one car that had not been destroyed was repaired and back in service when the investigators visited MATA and various items had been removed and at least one item reinstalled on another car-apparently all without documentation. Suffice to say, all in attendance were appalled at what we saw and heard. The investigation results were presented in a seminar and on request, the presentation was repeated at the end of the Parts Committee meeting by request.

"While I like the idea, I think the song is a little too dark, even for me. Anyone who knows me in person knows that I'm generally in a good mood, mildly cheerful and possess a decent, if sick, sense of humor. Doesn't stop me from being direct when need be"

German industrial speedmetal is dark? I guess I can shelve my other suggestion as positively noir.

What the saying? "Been there--done that--bought the T-shirt!"

I'll be there at IRM for the 2015 ATRRM annual conference. I'll definitely attend the NNN/whatever pizza & beer fest. And, I'll definitely buy the T-shirt. Sounds like a lot of fun, and finally to meet some of the monikers on this forum, eh?

Thanks!

Wore it out, gave it to Goodwill, and got it back in a McMaster-Carr box of rags."

Why not buy the rags directly from Goodwill?

But seriously, whatever the letters used some kind of gathering based off this board would be good at any conference.

I guess "dark" isn't the correct term. One of my favorite albums is "Tragic Songs of Life" by the Louvin Brothers.

But seriously, since there is some interest I will get to work on this as convention time grows nearer. We may allow a Skype-in or other video conferencing for those who cannot attend.

Old school Tom Waits. Which one doesn't matter.

dave

Found the link to the Memphis report:

http://www.matatransit.com/uploadedFile ... olleys.pdf

Just talked to Nick at IRM so we could fit the NNN meeting in and not interfere with the convention schedule. The NNN Meeting at ATTRM will be on the Saturday of the convention, September 19, 2015. It will be a breakfast at a place in beautiful downtown Union where the Legion Hall used to be, provided it is still open then. If not, we will decamp to alternate breakfast places.

This would get people out close to IRM for the operating day.

(Edited to Correct Date)

Date check, David.....