While carbon monoxide is mentioned in the report - diesel engines that would be installed in the same manner as the gas engine would have also generated carbon monoxide to nominally the same extent as the gas engine. Gasoline as a fuel which caught fire caused the fatalities in the crash, while diesel is harder to ignite, it can be ignited. The Engineer jumped from the equipment prior to impact and survived, thus he was not incapacitated by carbon monoxide.

Alco dropped out of the consortium but GE and IR continued since GE could build locomotives at Erie. According to Wikipedia, 17 were built between 1928 and 1930. California State RR Museum has a 110 ton (2 diesels) edition of a GE-IR locomotive, Foley Bros Construction 110-1 (GE-IR 1929).

Alco adopted McIntosh and Seymour engines but continued to buy electrical gear from GE.

Phil Mulligan

I would like to have combine Diesel units in Romania. For transporting luggage and parcels.
In the past a talked about a brochure of rail electrification. Here it is: https://postimg.cc/gallery/XCwTYBQ/72a88a56
Pitty there aren't to many electrified railroads in U.S.A. Imagine the '40'-'60's with a long run train on a route with 600-1,000 miles of electrified rail; power, power, more power (and a GG 1 leading the train). It's a pitty that in U.S.A., where rails bought so much progress to the society, they where treated badly starting with the '50's. If one day U.S.A. will become what it was once, one starting points should be the rail. If it would be to happen, I would like to have an old style magazine called "Progresul Popoarelor" = "Progress of the People" (people in way of nations) and to write about modern, but old style and friendly trains.

US railroads for the most part did not have the traffic density to justify investing in catenary with its attendant substations, generating stations etc. The PRR and New Haven in the NE Corridor were an exception. The Virginian in the coal mining region had too much traffic for steam on single track and electrification was considered a better solution than double track. The Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension did not have the traffic volume and the corporation went into bankruptcy. N&W's electrified line had a line relocation and steam was considered the better option over the new line. Other RR electrifications involved tunnels and when diesels came available, the wires came down.

Commuter lines with frequent service (NH, NYC, DL&W, RDG, SP) had the traffic density to warrant electrification of the commuter lines. NYC also had a long tunnel in New York.

Cleveland Union Station did not have the ventilation to handle steam exhaust. Again, when diesels came available, the wires came down.

Phil Mulligan

"Milwakee" used rotary converters, which did needed some mentinance. But major freight routes don't have a lot of activity?
On "Alamy" I found this intresting image of a early XXth century vehicle, with cloister and "Gothic" windows: https://www.alamy.com/the-street-railwa ... d0%26pl%3d
It's intresting it have both trolleyes (not 1 trolley, but 2), but also a pantograph. The pantograph was used for interurban higher speed running? In Europe, most steetcars had trolleys in the past (not necesarly U.S.A. style), but most of them where switched to pantographs.
Off-topic: one of the images shows a motor that haves some kind of tap wheel. I've other images with stuff like that... for what that "tap wheel" was used for? https://www.alamy.com/electric-railway- ... 54784.html

The Albany - Hudson Fast Line and the Sacramento Northern RR, on opposite American coasts, went 1 better, adding 3rd rail shoes to the mix!

This is an interurban car, not really a railroad car. From the somewhat garbled caption information, it appears this was a dual voltage 25 HZ AC car; 6600 volts on private right of way, but only 660V when running through the streets. This was typical, the city fathers weren't comfortable with what at that time was transmission line voltage over city streets, and used the terms of their franchise agreement to limit the voltage in town. If this is the case, likely the pantograph was used on the high voltage wire between towns and the trolley poles in town.

I was looking for something from France and I stumbled on something from U.S.A: http://archivchemindefer.free.fr/Tram19.jpg
No that's some crazy ideea for articulated streetcars. Well, that was a nice ideea, but articulated streetcars strated to appear in common use in U.S.A. only in the '70's (I think it was again in Boston).



Why that ... madness?

Known to trolley fans here as 'two rooms and a bath.' This was an early attempt to improve loading speed with a larger platform, totally suspended between the two cars.

Articulated cars were tried by several other properties; in the late twenties Milwaukee had both two unit streetcars and homebuilt two unit high speed interurbans.

Of course, shortly after the debut of the articulated Zephyr trains on the Burlington in the thirties, in 1941 the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee ordered two mini electric streamliners, calling them Electroliners, both of which are preserved.

And, the Chicago Transit Authority, operator of that city's subways, had four experimental articulated subway cars built in the fifties.

Articulation is a concept that has been tried repeatedly, and abandoned just as often.

Oh, I forgot about "North Shore Line".
As to the question from the 1st post, "Amtrack" when it put television on trains and what sources for the image it used?
Here is someting awsome also found on that French site: http://archivchemindefer.free.fr/Kalm/Kalm.xhtml The past wasn't as nice we like to think, but it had grace.

Cleveland also had articulated trolleys.

The 1970's cars were the US Standard Light Rail Vehicle mandated by the US government for transit systems but only Boston and San Francisco got them. Boeing-Vertol built them near the Philadelphia Airport but the Philadelphia system couldn't use them because the cars were too large.

They proved very unreliable and neither Boston nor San Francisco operates any, although both systems are operating PCC's, which the LRV's were supposed to replace.

As to rotary converters, Amtrak still uses them (actually motor-alternators) to convert commercial (USA) 60 Hz power to 25 Hz. Amtrak intends to keep the rotaries because they recover from outages better than modern equipment. The two 25 Hz alternators at the Safe Harbor dam are also still rotaries for the same reason.

Phil Mulligan

Didn't know San Francisco tryed them. I knew about Boston. But what made them so unrelaible?
In Romania, the P.C.C. type streetcars (Czech made) are better then allmost of pre 2010? Romanian made streetcars.
So rotary convertors can stop more fast then modern techonology?
Is there any 4 "track" route reamined in U.S.A.? Even Horse Shoe Curve had 4, but now they are 3.
When "Amtrack" introduced A.M.P.S. telephony into trains?

A few comments . . .

The York Railways Co built an 18 mile, 6,600v 25 cycle AC line which used M-G sets for frequency conversion. While both an M-G set and rotary converter are "rotating machines", an M-G set consists of a separate motor and generator (two field frames, two armatures), while a rotary converter has only one frame and "armature". Back in them days, there wasn't a definite separation between the terms "generator", "alternator", "stator", "field frame", "rotor" and "armature". The cars were designed form the outset to run on 6,600v AC and, to be compatible with the local streetcar systems it use in towns and cities, they had provisions for operating on 600v DC. York Railways had several other shorter branch lines, which operated on 600v DC, and in 1921, the AC line was converted to 600v DC.

>The pantograph was used for interurban higher speed running?

Only on the AC parts of the system, because as WH designed the overhead system without wire frogs.

>As to rotary converters, Amtrak still uses them (actually motor-alternators) to convert commercial (USA) 60 Hz power to 25 Hz.

I heard it was the power companies which owned the conversion equipment and sold the 25hz power to Atk, ConnDOT, etc.

RE the Sacramento Northern: it used 600v 3rd rail north of Sacramento, 1,200v overhead and trolley poles between Sacramento and just short of it's facilities in Oakland, where it changed to 600v, and pantographs because the Key System didn't have wire frogs in its trolley wire on the transbay lines. In the 1920s, the 1,200v section was raised to 1,500v, and in late 1939, it started operating over the Bay Bridge, which had a 1,200v trolley. The freight motors always used pantographs.

>Didn't know San Francisco tryed them. I knew about Boston.

In fact, SF bought most of an order of them which were rejected by the MBTA. On the Muni these were numbered in the 1300 series.

>But what made them so unrelaible?

Too much gadgetry and deliberately ignoring of what the transit industry had learned between 1890 and 1970.

Thanks for you reply.
1) What the industry learned and they did not apply? Boston got some Made in Japan stuff;
2) Converter is a generally used term, so sometimes is applied to motor-generator too;
3) 25 Hz. is transported on 3 phaes lines?

> 1) What the industry learned and they did not apply?

Just about everything. The mind-set was "we're not going to use any of the 'old-fashioned technology'". BARTD did the same thing and wound up changing only the track guage (to 5'3") and propulsion voltage (to 1kv DC). As a result, every time they order new car, they pay a premium rather than simply adding a tack on to some other transit system order. I seem to recall that their most recent order worked out to around $1.5 million/car.

> Boston got some Made in Japan stuff;

I believe this was post-Boeing LRV.

> 2) Converter is a generally used term, so sometimes is applied to motor-generator too;

That is probably European usage. In the US the generic term for conversion equipment is generally just that, "conversion equipment", and includes rectifier apparatus (mercury arc, ignitron tubes, and solid state, although mercury arc and ignitrons are now obsolete).

> 3) 25 Hz. is transported on 3 phaes lines?

The original NH electrification used some sort of split phase arrangement, which proved to be unsatisfactory. It's been a while, but I think the NEC distribution is all single phase (25kv at 60 hz north of New Haven.