19-06-15 PHOTOS: PATCO Shoppe Tour

In June 2019 I finally got in on a PATCO shoppe tour.  Typically organized by my local West Jersey NRHS chapter, these tours have been happening with some degree of regularity for years, but despite having been a PATCO rider since age 3, I had never had an opportunity to get in on one until this point.  In fact, I had actually gotten in on a Baltimore transit shop tour before  managed to get in on a PATCO one.  You can find all of the PATCO Shoppe tour photos here (mirror) and I encourage you to look at them as I am only going to be posting a small sample here. 

The group met in the parking lot.  It was a pretty good turnout, which is not surprising given the type of event.

First stop on the tour was the axle press that separates or joins various axle components including wheels, bearings and gearboxes.

Next stop was the machine shoppe area with the typical slate of drill presses, lathes and band saws.

 PATCO's wheel truing machine is an older style that requires the trucks to removed and placed onto the machine with a crane.  Newer wheel machines can work on trucks that are still under the vehicle. The machine grinds down worn wheels to restore the profile and remove flat spots.

Speaking of trucks, PATCO is one of two remaining users of the Pioneer III truck, the other being Amtrak with the Amfleet series.  The P-III was designed by the Budd company as a lightweight  truck that would derail less on bad track.  It was available in both powered and unpowered variants and was previously installed on the SEPTA Silverliner II and MTA M1s.

The truck frames some in two halves and as you can see they are very simple affairs. 

 

 These gearboxes are connected to the truck and transmit power from the motors to the axles.

Here we see spare axle and gearbox assemblies ready to be connected to a truck.

PATCO uses GE 1255 A3 motors rated for 140 HP at 650/325 volts DC and 4600 RPM.

 Two motors are mounted on each truck for a total of 560hp/car.

Finally the truck is mated to the car via this bolster, which I think uses an air bag suspension system and creates the soft bouncy ride.

07-06-29 PHOTOS: CTA - Metra UP West

Continuing on with my Chicago trip with American Pig, after dropping our stuff off at the Hotel we decided to ride some of the Chicago El and a Metra line. Wanting to see how Mayor Daley's efforts to gentrify the Cermak area by attracting Communists was goin we rode the new Pink Line out and back, stopping off at Clinton to take some pictures of the CNW station. On the return trip from Cermak we changed to a Green Line train at Ashland and rode it out to the end of the line at Harlem Lake. There we transfered over to the Metra UP West Line at Oak Park to catch a train back to Chicago.

I was able to use the gallery cab car's railfan window to good effect taking pictures of KEDZIE interlocking, TOWER A-2 at Western Ave and the semaphores at Lake Street interlocking right before the Chicago Northwestern Station.

Anyway, there are quite a lot of photos and you can see them all here.

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/07-06-29_CTA_METRA_UP_WEST/-Thumbnails.html

There are going to be a good deal of high-lite pics so hold onto your DSL connection.

Green Line train a Wabash with a Boeing 2400 series car #2501.

The famous CTA Tower 18 with another 2400 series Green Line train approaching over the Lake St drawbridge.

Pink Line trains pass before Ashland with Budd 2600 series train #3013 in the lead.  Ashland affords a spectacular view of the downtown behind a classic elevated transit line.

Pink Line train turns off at Ashland with 2200 series Budd #2206 in the rear.

Patriotic 2400's are still running on the Green Line with #2530.

04-06-12 CLASSIC PHOTOS: Seashore Trolley Museum

Often referred to as the gold standard in streetcar museums, the Seashore Trolley Museum is unfortunately a bit off my beaten path being both in Maine and also transit inaccessible. However back in July of 2004 I did make the journey with some friends which checked off the box in a similar fashion to my one and only trip to the Shoreline Trolley Museum in 2005. This set ( mirror ) also includes photos from my Amtrak trip to and from New Englande.

Arriving at Baltimore Penn Station I found GP40WH-2 #69 along with an elusive pair of AEM-7's with #4900 (nice) and AEM-7 replacement HHP-8 #4910. Despite both Amtrak's and SEPTA's AEM-7 fleets soldiering on for another decade, the MARC units generally vanished from public view before winding up at the Locust Point shoppes.

If I recall correctly my traveling companion joined me in New Haven to continue on to Boston via train. Once in Boston our local host treated us to a tour of the MBTA's Cabot Car Shoppes where the Red Line fleet is maintained. The 01500 and 01600 cars were already over 30 years old and have subsequently turned 50.

A new cam controller had just been delivered from the Everett shoppes for the purely DC-drive 01500/01600/01700 cars. Everett had been the Orange Line shoppes until the line was rerouted up to MBTA Reading Line to Oak Park, but still would perform component refurbishment.

The Seashore Trolley Museum can be considered the "Boston" streetcar museum in the same way that Shore Line is the "New York" museum. It also has quite a few bits of preserved infrastructure such as this copper clad Orange Line tower, a former New Haven RR dwarf semaphore signal and motor generator set for converting AC power to DC.

It also has an extensive collection of rapid transit vehicles from all over the country. Their literal party piece is a State of the Art Car, which can in fact be rented for parties.

In addition to vintage wayside automatic block signals, Seashore used this "token" system to implement traffic control. The system could support platoons of either 5 or 6 streetcars.