Many thanks to David Johnston for sending along the news that the Western Railway Museum is acquiring three electric cars local to its area. The cars have been under the purview of an organization called Friends of Light Rail and are stored indoors on the property of the Sacramento Regional Transit light rail system. However FoLR, which sounds like it was kind of an ephemeral organization to begin with, has essentially melted away, so the cars were made available to WRM.
The first car being acquired is
Pacific Gas & Electric 18, shown above. As far as I know, the history of this car is a bit of a mystery insofar as its builder and vintage are unknown. It began life as a California car and was later enclosed, as were many Sacramento cars. I believe it's similar to
PG&E 14, currently preserved at WRM. These two cars, 14 and 18, have the unusual distinction of being the only "rope brake" cars on the PNAERC roster.
Next up is
Sacramento Northern 27, shown here, a suburban California car built in 1908 by St. Louis for the Northern Electric. It was used in "Elverta Scoot" service between Chico and Elverta (more info
here). It's the oldest SN electric car preserved and is a unique piece of equipment among the extant SN fleet.
Finally, we have
Pacific Gas & Electric 65, a lightweight "Christmas present car" built in 1929 by American for Sacramento. This car is identical to
PG&E 63, already preserved at WRM, and the museum tentatively plans to ultimately restore whichever of the two cars is assessed to be in better condition.
There's one additional car stored as part of the FoLR collection:
Pacific Gas & Electric 36, shown here, is a large California car built by American in 1913. However it's not going to be preserved for two reasons: first of all, it's in extremely poor condition and its body is collapsing; second, identical sister car 35 is preserved in fully (and beautifully) restored condition in Sacramento as a representative of the type.
Speaking of
Pacific Gas & Electric 35, David also sent along photos of that car, shown below. Car 35 was restored in the 1980s by Fred Bennett for the San Jose light rail system, and given their location, the car was given a faux paint job to represent "San Jose Railroad 129" - a car that never existed. However in 1999 the car was sent back home to Sacramento, where it has been stored in good condition - though largely unused - in its San Jose garb. (I have seen early-2000s photos of it lettered PG&E 35, but those may have been stickers or magnets used for a one-time event.)
OK, what's a "rope brake"?
ReplyDeleteFrom the WRM website: “14 is one of the group of "rope brake" cars, which used power-assisted hand braking. The mechanism consisted of a rope about 2" in diameter between the hand brake staff and the brake levers on the car. In between, it was fed one turn around a capstan mounted on the leading axle of the front truck, with the same arrangement at the opposite end. Using the hand brake lever to pull on the rope caused the rope to tighten around the capstan, which in turn produced an even greater pull on the brake levers. There was a second brake lever which was directly connected to the brake rigging for use in parking the car and whenever a rope broke.”
ReplyDeleteI rode the PG&E 35 at an ARM convention. Maybe 2006? It’s fine and I think it’s on Melbourne trucks. The whole FOLR project was supposed to be a part of a heritage trolley running around downtown Sacramento from old sac to the capital through the plaza boulevard and also cutting through the shopping district. Like almost all of these urban museums/attractions, it’s a thing that just doesn’t sustain itself through political tides (except market street and New Orleans of course). I never could connect with this mysterious group. O Anderson
ReplyDelete