Layout 4, Video 4 - New HO Scale PCC Streetcar/Trolley From Bowser w/ Loksound
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- This video is our 40th video on our exploration of the railroading hobby. This is the fourth video for layout #4.
This video shows our three newest power units we have for the HO scale layout. We went to Dibble's Hobbies and picked up three new PCC trolleys from Bowser. The trolleys are DCC with Loksound and in three different color schemes from Philadelphia. One is in the old PTC green and cream colors, one in the Septa bicentennial colors, and one in Septa markings in the red and cream colors that they had when they received a batch of used trolleys from Toronto.
There are some very interesting effects programmed in by Bowser. My personal favorite is the passenger stop button. In this, you can press one button and the trolley sounds a warning gong, stops, and plays a recording of the doors opening. If you press the button again, it plays the doors closing, the warning gong, and resumes moving at the previously set speed. This is perfect if you are modeling the trolley making normal runs in a city.
More info on the PCC Trolley on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.o...
More info on SEPTA on Wikipedia:: en.wikipedia.o...
More info on PTC on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.o...
Bowsers website: www.bowser-tra...
Dibble's website: www.dibbleshob...
Oh my! So many memories. I grew up in the Toronto suburbs of the early’60’s. Before having my driver’s license we used the TTC for everything. The city was ours for the price of a ticket and “ transfers” to the next destination. Thanks for this. Always wondered where the replaced cars went! Now I know where 20 went.
Glad I could bring up some good memories for you. I got the trolleys for my nostalgia of riding the Cream/Green PTC trolleys as a kid in Philadelphia. I agree, one bus token with a few transfers each way let me explore a fantastic city as a kid.
I liked seeing the Toronto streetcar, this is what they looked like when I was kid. Some of these ran into the 80’s week days, their replacements were just retired a year ago.
I just checked out another sight that showed film of those Toronto streetcars. The ones in the film from 1965 had windows in the bottoms of the rear doors, I don’t know when these were installed. They did originally didn’t have them, they were modified for safety reasons.
That is good information to know. I do remember them having windows in the bottom sections of the doors, but never noticed when that started.
Glad to help bring back memories. I got the trolleys because I loved riding them in Philly as a kid, and could not resist the memories myself.
Philly is one my favorite trolley cities. Nice layout. I'm from Brooklyn, so I recall PCC'S on Coney Island and Church Avenues (I was 4)
I discovered Philly PCC'S in 1970 when most were still in PTC green and cream.I even thought of moving to Philly to become a motorman and running them for a living, but I hired on with the Penn Central and be ame a locomotive engineer, always looking to spot a PCC on routes 15, 50, 56, 60, 36 & 10 from the cabs of GG1's, Aem-7's, finishing up with the Acela (only PCC 11's by that time. I'm retired and live in San Diego where in weekends we have the San Diego vintage trolley. One ex Newark City Subway (former #10) and ex San Francisco ex St Lewis Public Service now #529.
San Francisco's F line(which operates daily) consists of 14 fully restored former SEPTA PCC'S, and 11 ex Newark ex Twin Cities Rapid Transit, plus Muni #1040, the last PCC built in North America, in addition to 5 double enders also native to San Francisco. Muni Heritage weekend is coming up, Sept. 23-24 where you can ride these as well as their great collection of historic vehicles (go to streetcar.org for more info). Oh yeah, it's a trolley pole, not arm.
Thanks, I grew up in Philly and loved the trolleys and the older subway (before they went to the Budd aluminum cars). I really wish I could have ridden in a GG1 also, one of my favorite locomotives. I have not been out to San Diego yet, and while I was in San Francisco I did not know they had the older trolleys. I was only aware of the cable cars that SF is famous for. Of course, that was about 25 years ago and it was a short business trip so I did not get to go exploring too much.
Dallas has two different trolley systems. One is a new system that is part of their regular transit system. They use streetcars built in 2015. The other started as a private enterprise to commemorate trolleys. It now has 7 trolleys, 5 of which predate PCC cars. One of the others is a PCC car from the last order built that was sent to Toronto. The last is a PCC car that had been sent to Belgium and was rebodied to something narrower for the European streets. I have ridden their PCC car and will probably try to get on some of the others as I go back into Dallas to visit my daughter.
And thanks for the correction. I should have remembered that it was called a trolley pole. But as I age, things from childhood get harder to remember accurately.
@@Rothstein_Model_Trains
I posted a slideshow "My trip across San Francisco in PCC......., last year on CZcams for the 2022 Muni Heritage weekend.
Bruce
Also check out Fred Goodman's excellent video of the 2022 Heritage Weekend. I'm on the Brussels PCC in the interior shot on the left in a red windbreaker. Also, very briefly in door way of the Baltimore (ex-Septa) car.
Bruce
"Happy Heritage Day June 4, 2022, My trip across
San Francisco on PCC 1063" is the title of my post. The ex-Septa PCC painted to honor Baltimore had just been out-shopped after accident repairs suffered a year earlier. It was out for tests following it's third complete rebuild at Brookville, when it was struck by a tractor trailer making an illegal turn. Essentially, it's brad new again, complete with "new car smell".
Bruce
Thanks. I will look at both videos.
You don't "drive" a trolley, you operate it. The operator is also called the motorman. Those Bowser PCC cars are of the ex-Kansas City cars that were sold second hand to Philly and Toronto. Some of Toronto's ex-Kansas City PCC cars ran briefly for the MUNI in San Francisco. The PTC and later SEPTA mostly used their ex-Kansas City PCC cars on Rt. 50, between 4th & Ritner in South Philly and then all the way up to Rising Sun & Knorr in the Lawndale section of Philly. Only the ex-Kansas City cars in the 2200 series got the Bicentennial paint jobs. I rode the line many times and I filmed it on color movie film. The line passed Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. In the Fifth Street subway station of the Market-Frankford Subway Elevated, there is a rendering of an ex-Kansas City PCC car in the tile wall of the station.
SEPTA restored a 1947 "all-electric" 2700 series PCC car and it's in the lobby of their headquarters building at 12th & Market. It's car 2733 and I assisted in the restoration. Among other things, I gave them the "Golden Glow" headlight for the car.
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2733_septaheadquarters_wilbreh_phil286.htm
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2269_40th+lancaster%5Efantrip_196706_jt+frecioc_phil034.htm
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2272_4th+new_edhav_ehp198.htm
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2287_4th+race_edhav_ehp171.htm
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2263_5th+sansom_edhav+jimboyl_ehp243.htm
www.newdavesrailpix.com/phl/htm/usr_h_phl_2251_5th+chestnut_1975_bv_bvph145.htm
The "arm" as you call it is the trolley pole.
I apologize for taking so long to answer you, I have had a bad couple days. Thank you for your corrections. I used the trolleys as a passenger around 50 years ago or so, and I do not remember all of the correct terms, if I even knew them back then.
The "arm" is a trolley pole.
Thanks. Sorry to take so long to acknowledge this, but got busy with work stuff. This was pointed out and it just shows how bad my memory is from riding them 60 years ago.
I remember that sound from the NYC buses in the late 80s/early 90s.
Thanks, glad to see I am not the only one who remembers little things like that.
Hi Steve. This was definitely one of my favorite videos on your channel. Like you, the green PTC trolley brings back memories and is definitely my favorite color scheme, too. I also like the fact that the HO layout is high so when your son is shooting the video we (the viewer) are looking at the trolley like we are on the ground level with it, as compared to the N-scale video where our point-of-view is from high above the track (relatively speaking). The only thing I'd say about the trolleys is that you can see the motor through the window. I'm sure it can't be helped, but it would have been so much cooler if there were seats and mini-humans sitting inside that we could see through the windows. I couldn't tell if there was a driver sitting at the front. I like that the model shows route 50 and Rising Sun in front on the route sign. I don't know if 50 went on Rising Sun, but, hey, it's only a model and who can remember that far back anyway! LOL Glad to see King Kong and Godzilla back in their fighting stance! Are you still thinking about a method to have the trolleys go "underground" for part of their route? Now that you have the trolleys, you can definitely make that happen. Last question (for today): how do the signals to go, stop, turn on lights, etc. reach the trolleys and the locomotives? Is it bluetooth or WiFi or some other method? Take care. -- Ed
Hi, Ed. Glad you agree on the nostalgia factor for these. My son and I were both surprised that they made the windows clear like that, instead of an opaque white with pictures or silhouettes of passengers, if only to hide the motors. Of course, it is kind of neat to see the motor turning in them too.
I probably won't make an underground run on this layout, though I really like the idea of doing it with both trolleys and subway cars at some point. I was thinking of making a sort of model of Philly with the subway and el, trolleys on the streets and freight trains on Delaware Ave. Getting 30th St station in for Amtrak would be neat too. Obviously, to make it work it would not really look like Philly too much, but just have those features and maybe some recognizable terrain or buildings, like City Hall.
The way the signals get to the locomotives is through the power in the rails. When we were kids, the rails used just DC power and the speed was based on how much power your gave it. A lot of people are still into the DC power method, but most of us probably use what is called DCC instead. The power through the rail is a full power signal with a digital pulse modulation to carry commands. It can give it a speed or tell it to make noise or turn on lights, etc. There is a circuit board in the locomotive that decodes this signal and then sends its own commands to the various parts, such as an output to a light being told to go on or off. You can also build decoders into the tracks for things, such as telling it to throw a turnout to redirect the train to a different rail. Some of the larger scales even have decoders to couple or decouple the cars if you want to build a train from individual cars like the prototype railroads do. Right now, I am keeping the DCC for the train control and leaving the switches and layout options as DC with separate switches for them. But who know how it will end up if I get enough money and space to build the next layout.
See you,
Steve
@@Rothstein_Model_Trains Thanks for a great explanation of DCC. I know only about the DC of our youth. I like how you ended your comment: "See you". Is that a hint that you'll be at the 233 50th? I've never been to one, but I definitely intend to be at this one. Maybe you've seen some of the comments I've had with Derrick on the 233 group. Have a happy 4th of July holiday!
Well, the comment was more intended as just a friendly way of saying good-bye, but I am currently planning on going up there for the reunion. A half century since we graduated just sounds like such a long time that it kind of deserves some recognition. I did make it to one, our 40th, but that was it. Had a good time up there then too.
I have been following it on Facebook. I told Coke that I would help as much as I can but I am not sure how much help I can be from Texas. If you need any help at the scene when we are up there, I would be glad to do so then too. I will probably try to get in a day or two early if we need any final errands for setting up or anything.