San Diego Electric Railway Association PO Box 89068 San Diego, CA 92138 (619) 474-4400 October 2007 Check us out at our web site: TROLLEY LINES www.sdera.org Inside this issue: San Diego Trolley Excursion 2007 San Diego Trolley Ex- 1, 9 SDERA’s San Diego Trolley Excursion and Shop Tour was held Saturday, August cursion 2007 11. Participants gathered at the MTS Yard in downtown for a unique event—running the PCC Car Project 2 oldest of San Diego Trolley’s cars along the newest of the Update lines. An added bonus was a visit to the San Diego Vin- History Of The Vienna 3, 8 tage Trolley (SDVT) shop and an opportunity to step into N1 Class Cars - Part 2 history being (re)made. Visitors saw the three PCC cars San Diego Trolley Shop 4 that are being readied for service on the downtown loop - Tour to be designated the Green Dot Special in 4 Silver Line - in time the Bookstore for the APTA SDERA Election An- 5 (America Public Tran- nouncement sit Association) Con- vention next August. Sprinter Excursion 6 This also gave MTS Retired SDERy Car Operator Ed Passenger Trains That 7 Chairman Harry Herold is back at the controls of Work Mathis an opportunity SDVT’s PCC car #530 to speak to the group C. Higgins photos Speeder Progress 8 and make a pitch for volunteers and donations. Annual Dinner 9 After the Shop Tour (see article on Page 4), the Upcoming Events Back Harry Mathis gives an update on the group boarded a consist of three Siemens U2 cars. progress of the Vintage Trolley project Psst! Wanna Know a Secret? Originally brought into service in 1981 on the San Diego to San Ysidro route, these cars This newsletter is available in sported a fresh coat of paint and a “I color on our website! See Think I Can” attitude. After a brief de- www.sdera.org and look on our lay through downtown, the cars headed Newsletters page. Those red trolleys are really something! for Qualcomm Stadium where a run-by had been planned. What we didn’t ex- SDERA operates the historic pect was a triple-meet; a set of SD100s, National City Depot museum our U2 set, and the newest of the fleet, which is open every Saturday an S70 in a mixed consist passing at the and Sunday from 9 a.m. to Qualcomm parking track on the east 5 p.m. Phone 619-474-4400. side of the station. From there, we re-boarded and headed San Diego Electric Railway for the main reason why U2 cars aren’t Association Three generations of San Diego Trolley meet at the Qual- (Continued on page 11) • David Slater, President comm parking track. • Jim Papulas, Vice President • Chris Higgins, Secretary, Web- “The Number Has Been Changed…” master / Newsletter Editor San Diego Electric Railway Association has consolidated it’s phone • Tom Matson, Treasurer • Directors: Jim Price, Tom lines. We have discontinued the 619-699-8690 number that has been Carnes, Gary Sweetwood, used for voice mail. Effective immediately, please use the National City Mitch Beauchamp, Jeff Trimble Depot number—619-474-4400 for all calls for SDERA. • George Geyer, Bookstore Page 2 SDERA TROLLEY LINES PCC Car Project Update - Dave Slater, Project Manager Now on the web at www.sdera.org/sdvt As usual, we begin at 10:00 am Tuesday and Thurs- car equipment prior to "powering up" for the first time, day mornings and work until 2:00 pm or later for those in a test mode. who are so enthused that they want to "Get 'er done!" Most of the re-glazed windows have been delivered, We have been making a lot of forward motion! As pre- and are in the process of being reinstalled. All the door viously reported, we painted two cars for our August 11 glasses, save two which fractured in the installation event, which went very well. It was well attended and process have, been replaced. we got two new members as well as some donations, Our friend and project member from Brooklyn, NY, which was a part of the plan in doing this event. Jan Lorenzen, donated builder's plates and we had more Since our event, we have returned to more mundane, cast from that one, courtesy of Gene Calman. Jan also but most important tasks, such as the completion of the donated two sets of wings for around the headlights! low voltage circuits in all three cars. We are also work- Gene had another made at the foundry, using one of ing on some of the high voltage systems. One of the pri- these as a pattern. He cleaned off all the slag at his home mary things that we discovered was that many of the shop. Gene has now taken the three to the plating com- fuses that had been installed were WAY to high a value. pany, where they will be triple chrome plated, as the IE: 60 volt, 600 amp, where the specs call for 10 amp, originals were! We will need the array of builder's 600 volt. All of these are now of the correct value. On plates not only for these cars, but for others that will be car #530, we discovered that two of the porcelain fuse acquired later. holders were missing. I bought two new ones from our Richard Vible of Philadelphia, PA has kindly do- friends at San Diego Electric Co., and they have been nated all THREE trolley pole retrievers that we need! installed by Art Aydelotte and Dennis Frazier. Many Many thanks, Richard! thanks! In our off days, I am always shopping for more Lee Summerlott has agreed to have all the scrap fuses, resistors, and other similar items that the project glass placed on a pallet in our bay so that Mark Delia of calls for. We still need resistor holding clips for the front Citywide Auto Glass can replace all of the standee win- resistor in the electrical cabinet. dows with the exception the green ones. We are using a Yesterday, I was looking for a couple different types #2 Gray like the U2 cars have as standee windows. This of replaceable element resistors. I got two and I am on a is a great savings of money for us. Lee has also agreed "quest" for the others. to provide three Shunk pantographs and installation for Dennis has been polishing and testing all the fuses these on the front of our cars. We are keeping the rear and resistors in #531 in preparation to chasing out the trolley poles, and they will be fully operational, as it is circuits in the system as we are also doing in the #530. not a good idea to attempt backing up with the panto- We need to get all the low voltage items operational, and graph on the front. This is a great thing because it main- we will. Ron Sutch has been painting the dash boards of tains the original style of these cars with the "Witch's all of our fleet. No small task. He is now working on Broomstick" All connectivity glitches are highly likely painting the "hood " doors of the Motor Generator sets to cause showers of sparks - including when going be- on each car. (This is where the mechanics mark with tween "joints" in the catenary. This is especially notice- chalk the date and what they did to the MG sets.) All of able at night.) the commutators are now bright and shiny, as well as the I really pleased at how many people from all over controller commutators. We took down all the inspec- the US and Canada have joined hands with us here in tion pans, so that we have perfect access to all the under San Diego to Restore The Magic! Many thanks to all! Upcoming Work Party Dates: Work Sessions are now being held Tuesday and Thursday from 10am to 2pm. Saturday Work Parties will be on Oct 20, Nov 3 & 17, and Dec 1,15 & 29. Due to security requirements, please contact Dave Slater / 619-222-5442 for authorization to be on the Trolley grounds. OCTOBER 2007 Page 3 History Of The Vienna N1 Class Cars—Part 2 - Chuck Bencik Editors Note: This is a continuation of Chuck’s article from the July newsletter. Part 1 can also be found on our web- site at www.sdera.org. Equipment on most of the N1s was standardized in 1966. Cars 2879 and 2880 re- ceived permanent roof resistors, for low speed operation and snow plowing – the roof being the only place where they could be installed. A third N1, No. 2878, was modified for operation with two herbicide tank cars with a chemical agitator. Car 2880 received the ELIN 10-pole receptacle with a pre-resistor. This receptacle allowed electrical control of the special track maintenance cars. The City Railway modernized its usable hopper cars with the ELIN receptacle. In 1977, car No. 2880 was desig- nated an “NH” or service car, and became the first of sixteen N1 cars reassigned the NH number. On October 30, 1981, San Diego's three N1 cars were redesig- nated NH 6888, NH 6890, and NH 6891. One of them, NH 6891, has the ELIN receptacle, a feature not found on all the NH service cars. Some cars, like NH 6888, were painted yel- The ELIN Connector low, the remainder stayed red. The red cars with a fast-acting brake valve, for service with trailer cars, rendered those cars not suitable for pas- senger service.