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November–December 1996 • $3.00 / Special Feature: PCCs of the World, 1936–1996 • The Buenos Aires Tourist Trolley yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Hedlights CONTENTS The Magazine of Electric Railways

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Published since 1939 by the Electric Nov -Dec Railroaders’ Association, Inc.

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyVolume 58, Number 11 -12 Novembe r–December 1996 Columns

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyStaff Editor and Art Director 3 Rail Transit News Sandy Campbell A roundup of rail transit activities in various cities reported by

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyContributing Editors E. L. Tennyson and Larry Ellis Reed. Arthur J. Lonto, Frank S. Miklos, E. L. Tennyson, Larry Ellis Reed, Bruce J. Russell, Winstan Bond Features

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Electric Railroaders’ Association, Inc. 4 Focus on Argentina, Part 3: yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyThe Buenos Aires Tourist Trolley Bruce J. Russell presents a history of the Buenos Aires Tourist Trolley in E the third of a four-part series on rail service in Argentina. Photography yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyNational Headquarters contributed by Allen Morrison. Grand Central Terminal New York City

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyMailing Address P.O. Box 3323, Grand Central Station 6 PCCs of the World, 193 6-1996: New York, NY 1016 3-3323 The First 60 Years E-Mail yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyWinstan Bond celebrates the 60th anniversary of the PCC in this [email protected] comprehensive international retrospective originally presented before the Institute of Railway Studies in London. Photography contributed Subscriptions

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyby Frank S. Miklos. Headlights is sent free to members of the E.R.A. Applications for E.R.A. membership are supplied On the Cover yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyupon request. Changes of Address Car 6069, a single-truck streetcar rebodied in Brussels in the 1950s, is one Send address changes to the E.R.A. of four streetcars operated on the Tramway Histórico de Buenos Aires by

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyalong with an old address label the Asociación Amigos del Tranvía (AAT). It looks oddly juxtaposed to from a recent issue. its surroundings as it saunters down Avenida Rivadavia in October 1995. Correspondence Photograph by Allen Morrison. All inquiries regarding the activities

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy of the E.R.A. should be directed to our New York headquarters.

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yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy RAIL TRANSIT SEATTLE WASH., D.C. The voters in Seattle, Arlington County, News King County, Pierce and Virginia, has no light rail, Snohomish Counties in but voters there recently Washington approved a voted 77% in favor of 2 A Siemens $3.9 billion transit plan selling $9 million more two-car train SACRAMENTO ST. LOUIS on November 5, 1996, by in MetroRail bonds to pauses for Sacramento Regional The Federal Transit a 58% majority after fail - assist with completion of passengers Transit has begun work Administration conclud - ing to pass a larger plan the 103-mile rapid transit on Sacra - on its Mather Field ed a Full Funding Agree - last year. A 70-mile system. Public support mento’s Watt extension of the Folsom ment with Bi-State commuter rail line on for rail transit has been I-80 line. This Boulevard Line for two Development Agency to BN trackage will be very strong…as long as section of miles, and design work fund a voter approved developed from Everett voters perceive a benefit. the system is to begin on the new 12.4-mile light rail line to Seattle and Tacoma, Blue sky projects, such as was con - South Line to Florin, from East St. Louis to and a 12-mile light rail the costly Phoenix auto - structed on a initially six miles, and Belleville, Illinois, restor - line will be built from mated system, have been right-of-way Elk Grove in the future, ing the former East St. Sea-Tac Airport through shot down in flames. that was about 12 miles. Sacra - Louis & Suburban Rail - the south side of Seattle originally men to RT was serving way service. Voters also to the bus tunnel under earmarked 12 million passengers approved extending the downtown which KENOSHA, WISC. for a free - annually before light rail line eight more miles to already has tracks in the In conjunction with way. opened almost a decade Scott Air Force Base, but pavement. A subway will plans by civic leaders for be built from downtown a major redevelopment to Capitol Hill and the scheme along the Lake University of Washing - Michigan waterfront, the ton, with an extension to municipally-owned North Gate promised if Kenosha Transit System additional federal funds has announced plans for can be obtained. About a light rail line. The 40,000 weekday light rail proposed line will link passengers are expected the downtown area — to be riding the system including the Transit eighteen months after Centre used by city, completion. intercity and commuter buses and the METRA The voter approved commuter rail line from funding will also provide Chicago — with the rede - suburb-to-suburb velopment area. Five PCC express bus service, east- streetcars from Toronto west express bus service have been acquired for FRANK S. MIKLOS and bus ramps onto this line. Construction is ago. Last year (FY 1996) that segment must High Occupancy Vehicle expected to commence ridership reached 23 await further federal (HOV) lanes on major in the spring of 1997 with million, almost double funding. The existing freeways. Continued bus operations to begin in the pre-rail level. new line from East St. operation in the subway early 1998. Revenue was sufficiently Louis to Lambert (bus tunnel) is in doubt ahead of budget allowing Airport is now carrying for both safety and travel Kenosha was served by fares to be reduced for over 40,000 weekday volume reasons. The the fabled North Shore the summer, stimulating passengers (12 million hybrid trolley and diesel Line interurbans still more patronage. annually) for a North buses from Breda have between Chicago and American record of not worked out too well, Milwaukee until 1963. 1,400 passengers per with high costs and low Streetcars last ran in weekday per scheduled volumes of travel. With Kenosha in the 1930s. E car, far in excess of light rail, it is planned to New York City subway open the facility seven REPORTED BY E. L. TENNYSON AND LARRY ELLIS REED productivity. days per week, and later (WISCONSIN) into each evening.

HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 3 THE BUENOS AIRES ToTR OuLLErY ist FOCUS ON ARGENTINA, PART 3 BY BRUCE J. RUSSELL

4 HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 treetcars ceased running in Philadelphia. His double-track, standard Polvorín Depot. (opposite page, top) Three of Buenos Aires in 1964 when the last gauge line with 600 volt DC trolley wire the four streetcars operated on the Tramway Ssuburban route shut down. The used American-style wooden interurbans. Histórico de Buenos Aires by the Asociación urban lines closed a year earlier fol - These cars ran until about 1950 and were Amigos del Tranvía (AAT). Car 652 lowing a gradual contraction of the replaced by former Paciﬁc Electric and Key (unnumbered, left) and car 258 (middle) were system. Sadly, once the capital elimi - System cars which have since been retired. purchased second-hand from Porto, Portugal. nated its trams the provincial cities such Lacroze originally intended to Car 652 has been decorated to resemble a as Tucumán and La Plata followed suit. extend his suburban line into the com - vehicle of a Belgian tramway company that Argentina’s last trams ran on Christmas, mercial center of Buenos Aires via a operated in the Argentine capital in the early 1966, in La Plata, bringing to a close a tunnel. Although a tunnel was eventu - 1900s. Car 9069 (right) came second-hand fascinating era in public transportation. ally dug, it became Line B of the munic - from Brussels, Belgium (an articulated At one time Buenos Aires had the ipal subway system. The line had no streetcar of very similar appearance, Belgium third largest street railway system in provision for through-running of sub - PCC 7500, can be seen on page 14). It is more South America, exceeded in size only urban services and passengers had to than 50 years old, but was rebodied by by Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. At its change trains. Brussels in the 1950s. Eighteen of the cars peak the Buenos Aires system boasted Ironically, the original concept is (including some that were not rebodied) were over 3,000 cars, mostly single truck. The once more being given serious consid - exported to South America in the early 1980s. All but car 9069 went to Ascunción, Paraguay, where they ran until recently (only one has run since 1994). ALLEN MORRISON

Outer Limits. (opposite page, bottom) Between the tunnel portal at Primera Junta and Polvorín depot in Caballito subway trains run on city streets! This is one of the Belgian-built cars that still run on Buenos Aires subway route A. On weekends these tracks, which form a 12-block loop, are used by the tourist streetcar line. ALLEN MORRISON

Stately Procession. (left) A rare assemblage of historic streetcars along Calle Emilio Mitre awaiting a charter in October of 1995.

ALLEN MORRISON “Paris of South America,” as Buenos Aires eration. The third-rail electric multiple- trams rather than full-size metro cars. was nicknamed, became a favorite of unit (MU) cars which now run over the Trams from the heaviest routes entered traction fans. suburban trackage may be rerouted it and were able to make a quick trip Horsecars began running in Buenos directly into the subway. Since privati - downtown, similar to the streetcar Aires in 1870 along several of the major zation of Buenos Aires’s public trans - subway in Boston. However, in 1920 it European-style boulevards. In the late portation five years ago, the same com - was converted into a regular heavy rail 1890s electrification of the routes began. pany now owns both lines. Provision of route and trams ceased using it. Over By 1910 the system — which had a no change, one seat journey will cer - the years the rolling stock was exten - expanded within the city and into the tainly boost patronage. sively rebuilt; they survive today as the suburbs — was entirely electric. world’s oldest metro cars. In the early 1900s most of the lines Population Growth Fosters Buenos Aires experimented with were owned by British interests. Amer - Expansion British-style double-deck trams, but ican investors also had a financial stake in Buenos Aires’s population grew enor - they never found favor. Likewise, a few routes, but these were bought out mously between 1890 and 1930 with the double-truck models weren’t used by 1930. Another non-British operator of arrival of immigrants from Italy, Spain, either, except on a few lines which ran electric railways in Buenos Aires was Fed - England and Germany. The need for from the port area into the southern erico Lacroze, who operated several urban good public transportation was para - suburbs. Instead, the network consisted services to the city’s largest cemetery. He mount. New residential areas were almost exclusively of two-axle, single- also controlled the suburban line which rapidly being built and the electric truck vehicles with trolley poles. Since became known as the Ferrocarril General trams were usually filled to capacity. most of the lines twisted and turned Urquiza following nationalization in 1948. New routes, plus extensions to existing through narrow streets with tight clear - Instead of purchasing British-built rolling ones, were placed in service. ances, single-truckers were viewed as stock, he acquired cars from Brill of In 1913 a subway was opened for (continued on page 16)

HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 5 6 HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 PCC sOF THE

WORLD 193619-96 m1a9rks t96he 60th THE FIRST 60 YEAR S anniversary of the inauguration of PCC car operation, a milestone that has gone largely unnoticed in the U.S. Considering the general historical interest in the vehicle, we felt a celebration of the PCC’s colorful history throughout the world was in order. The vehicle’s story is not over, either. On-street PCC car service has resumed in the heart of San Francisco. PCC operation continues in Pittsburgh, Newark and Boston. And there is the prospect of new PCC operations (in whole or in part) in places such as Colorado Springs and New Orleans. British electric railway historians and enthusiasts have always had strong admiration for the PCC car program, and the arrival of a PCC car for preservation — in conjunction with the arrival of this anniversary — inspired the creation of a comprehensive PCC exhibit at the National Tramway Museum in Crich, England, that is unlikely to ever be surpassed. As an adjunct to this exhibition, Winstan Bond presented the following paper (originally entitled “A Streetcar Named Success: the PCC, a Product of American Research in the 1930s”) before the Institute of Railway Studies in London. Because of its interesting perspective, we are pleased to reproduce it in Headlights as the ERA’s acknowledgment of this signiﬁcant anniversary.

Experimental. PCC 1000 was a one-of-a-kind experimental car built for Brooklyn by the Clark Equipment Co. It is shown in the post-war green and silver livery on a railfan excursion carrying a destination sign for the 1939 World’s Fair. SPRAGUE LIBRARY COLLECTION

HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 7 s the 1920s closed, transit oper - San Francisco ators in North America ran over A 60,000 streetcars on around 40,000 miles of track, carrying 15 billion passengers. 90% of all cities over 25,000 people had streetcar service. Sadly, despite its importance, the industry was blinded by the technical solutions of its past, aspiring to no more than evolution for its product and the adherence to dis - tinctive local features and apparently not even suspecting the possibility of what we would now call ‘re-engineering’. This self-defeating outlook was one reason for the then recently failed attempt by the U.S. transit industry to produce a standard streetcar. A graphic example was the operator who refused FRANK S. MIKLOS to accept slight differences between his motor bus which were winning the speciﬁcation and the standard, prefer - intellectual battle for the city street, ring to pay 15–20% more, with later compounding the industry’s problem in delivery. Even if the committee’s design raising credit. had become accepted, evolution was The question of the relative role of no match for the motor car and the streetcar and bus was hotly debated. For operators and banks, it was a serious question — how much of the 40,000 miles of track should be abandoned, with ARTHUR J. LONTO perhaps a mas - be needed, vastly increasing the capital sive write-off of requirement. The average age of the capital, and how 60,000 streetcars was 17 years, but orders much re-laid? And, if for new equipment were running at less re-laid, new streetcars would certainly than 1000 a year, so great was the uncer - tainty and difﬁculty in obtaining capital. The out come of the gathering life Brooklyn and death battle was affected by a remarkable event in 1929. Streetcar operators, representing 30% of the industry and who had previously demanded streetcars built to their own design or heavily customized, agreed to fund an experimental research activity

First Production PCCs. (above left) America’s ﬁrst production order of PCCs went to Brooklyn. PCC 1001 is the ﬁrst car of this order and is shown at the Branford Electric Railway Association’s museum in Connecticut where it is preserved. ARTHUR J. LONTO

(left) Long time E.R.A. ofﬁcer and former editor of Headlights , Arthur Lonto, left, poses next to Brooklyn PCC 1001 at the Branford Trolley Museum shortly after the car was refurbished in the early 1960s. ARTHUR J. LONTO 8 HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 3 Rare Double-ended PCCs. (opposite page, top) Less than 100 double-ended PCCs were built for American transit systems. San Francisco purchased only 10 of them before acquiring single-ended cars. Car 1010 was recently refurbished and repainted into the blue and gold paint scheme that was adopted by the San Francisco Municipal Railway in the 1930s. It is shown at a photo stop on the J-Church line during the 1996 E.R.A. Convention.

3 Last American PCC. (opposite page, left) San Francisco car 1040 was the last American-built PCC. It was built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1952 and is shown leaving the loop at the Transbay Terminal.

so that “the present confusion with respect to the design of cars needed to meet the industry’s operating require - ments could be eliminated.” Philadelphia The committee was called the ‘Elec - tric Railway Presidents’ FRANK S. MIKLOS Mint Condition. (above) SEPTA PCC 2732 Conference Committee’. It has been preserved for excursions on the was chaired by the ener - Philadelphia trolley system . The silver roof getic and forceful Dr. and maroon striping are features that were Thomas Conway, a former found on these cars when they were professor of finance and delivered. These extra touches give this now Chairman of the car a very attractive appearance. Cincinnati & Lake Erie and the Philadelphia & Newark Look. (left) Car 2728 is another PCC Western interurbans. In an preserved by SEPTA for excursion service . age of streamlined trains The car sports a silver paint scheme that is and a wave of futuristic intended to represent the paint scheme that exhibitions, Dr. Conway FRANK S. MIKLOS was applied to Philadelphia’s original order of captured the public mood by staging a to endeavor to design a car which, from PCC cars. The car’s appearance, however, more race in 1930 between an airplane and the viewpoint of the railway executive, closely resembles the colors that were once one of his new interurban cars, the is better than any car now available. used on the PCCs in the Newark City Subway. Cincinnati & Lake Erie ‘Red Devils’. At 97 The second method was to approach mph, the Red Devil won! Conway fol - the task in a less spectacular but more lowed this with his ‘Bullets’ for the thorough manner — to apply to this Although the Committee agreed to cast Philadelphia & Western, based on Pro - important technical problem the a wide net in selecting its Chief Engineer, fessor Pawlowski’s wind tunnel studies. research method, which has produced it is probable that Conway already had Conway’s awareness of the need to such remarkable results in many other the successful candidate in mind. In compete on all fronts with the auto - industries. The Committee unani - rebuilding the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin mobile was appar ent in 1923. When mously chose the latter course, in 1923, Conway had engaged Dr. C. F. ordering new interurban cars for the believing the chances of success were Hirshfeld from Detroit Edison to advise Chicago, Aurora & Elgin, he had insti - much greater if the scientific method of on the power supply. Hirshfeld was a gated research into the differences attack was employed.” careful, methodical man. His ‘scientific between automobile seats and the ones Eventually the Committee would approach’ was the antithesis of the mix - being proposed for his new cars, embrace 28 operators, 25 manufacturers, ture of ‘hit and miss’ and folklore which resulting in radical changes. Speaking employ 30 research workers and raise frequently guided the industry’s tech - in 1931, Conway summarized the basic $630,000 to create the PCC streetcar. nical development. He knew little of choice, evolution or re-engineering, At the first full meeting of the Com - street railways and carried no intellec - which his Committee had realized was mittee in May 1930, Conway said he tual baggage. Equally as important, it is before them. “Two courses of proce - considered the selection of the Chief clear from the minutes of the Com - dure were open to the Committee — the Engineer to be one of the most impor - mittee that Hirshfeld had a strong grasp first was, by use of empirical methods tant single decisions they would make. of the political stratagems which he

HEADLIGHTS • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1996 9