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Friday, August 24, 2001 marked the end of an era in Newark, as the vintage PCC streetcars that provided regular everyday service on the modest and relatively inconspicuous Newark City Subway were finally retired.
30 PCCs were purchased secondhand in 1954 from Minneapolis, which had decided to shut down its streetcar system (and now is one of many cities planning to bring light rail back). Ever since then, the PCCs have quietly served the 4.3-mile long remnant of Newark's once-vast streetcar system, which had by then dwindled to a single line traversing a private right-of-way built on an old canal bed and through a 1.2-mile subway tunnel to downtown Newark from the north. 24 of the 30 original cars remained at the end of service.
But progress was bound to catch up, and it began to do so several years ago when NJ Transit, successor operator of the Newark City Subway, announced plans to extend the City Subway and re-equip it with new LRVs identical to the LRVs being purchased for a new light rail service in nearby Hoboken. The City Subway underwent a facelift, including new signals and catenary (the latter resulting in the disfigurement of the PCCs' Art Deco good looks with addition of large rooftop pantographs), and reconfiguration of the terminus and loop at Franklin Avenue to allow for construction of a 1.5-mile extension past Franklin Avenue to Bloomfield.
Although the inevitable was postponed several times, the 47-year reign of the PCCs in Newark finally ended with a series of commemorative "last rides" on August 24. Before their traction motors cooled from their last runs, at least three of the PCC fleet had already been earmarked for museums. After a weekend construction and maintenance shutdown, a fleet of 16 new Kinki Sharyo low-floor LRVs initiated service on the Newark City Subway. Will we celebrate their retirement 47 years from now?
See Photo Section below for some photos of Newark's PCCs, and other transit photos.
- NJ Transit, Newark Star LedgerNYCTA R26-class subway car #7835 was recently retired after over 4 decades of service in the New York City subway. Rather than meeting its end from the scrapper's torch like most retired subway cars, #7835 had the distinction of being one of the first cars ignominiously shoved by a bucket loader off the side of a barge on the ocean off the coast of Delaware, into eighty feet of water.
Built by ACF at it's Berwick, PA shops in 1959, the car and its sisters were originally delivered in a utilitarian olive drab color. After several decades of service and a number of different paint schemes (including graffiti!), the survivors of this and similar classes of cars were rehabilitated in the 1980s and 1990s. When they came out of rebuild, they featured a classy coat of graffiti-resistant gloss red paint, earning them the nickname "Redbirds".
A total of 400 Redbirds from the R26, R28, R29, R33, and R36 classes will be sunk off the Delaware coast to form an artificial reef for marine life. 300 more cars are slated to be sunk off South Carolina to form a similar "Redbird Reef", and negotiations are underway with several states to dunk an additional 600 cars off their coasts.
- New York TimesEditor's Note: I have an HO scale model of an NYCTA R-29. Another hobby of mine is aquariums. Hey, maybe now I can combine the two hobbies, and still be prototypical! Hehehehe...
In Boston, the MBTA's new Green Line low floor LRVs, beset by mechanical troubles that have delayed their introduction for several years, have yet again been pulled out of service because of troubles... they just can't seem to stay on the track.
On August 20, one of the Breda-built "Type 8" LRVs derailed on the Commonwealth Avenue line. Car #3807 left the rail, striking a steel intertrack fence and tearing down 400 feet of overhead wire. Nobody was injured in the mishap, but service was disrupted on this very busy branch for the rest of the day.
This is at least the sixth derailment suffered by a Type 8 since their introduction to service in 1999, and the second since the cars were reintroduced to service after nearly a year of being out of service due to several similar derailments in 2000. After the first series of derailments, the MBTA undertook an expensive and time-consuming program of installing guard rails in locations where Type 8s were thought to be prone to a greater risk of derailment. With guard rail work completed on the Commonwealth Avenue line, the Type 8s were reintroduced on that line only in April 2001. That action was seemingly not enough, as after their reintroduction two Type 8s suffered separate derailments while in service - car #3804 derailed inside the subway between Kenmore and Hynes Convention Center on July 17, and #3807 derailed on Commonwealth Avenue at Chiswick Road on August 20.
The Type 8 order had already been set back several years due to myriad mechanical difficulties. Since delivery of production cars began in 1999, only about one fourth of the 100-car order has been delivered, and only 17 cars had been accepted for revenue service.
The continuing problems with these cars may have a very negative impact on light rail service in Boston. The low floor Type 8 is supposed to be one of the key investments in making the Green Line accessible to disabled persons, and the 100-car order was also intended to not only allow replacement of the 55 remaining Boeing SLRVs, but also to increase the total available LRV fleet from 175 to 220 cars, and allow greater use of three-car trains to handle crush loads on the nation's busiest light rail system.
The MBTA is pursuing assistance from the Federal Transit Administration to help resolve this issue and determine a cause for the derailments. The transit authority has paid Breda more than half of the $218 million value of the contract so far, but may recoup up to $10 million in production delay fines. Meanwhile, a critical component in the future of Boston's light rail transit network sits idle in various Green Line layover yards with an uncertain future.
- Boston Globe, Boston HeraldNew York City: The isolated NYCTA rapid transit line on Staten Island was expanded recently. A short extension of the Staten Island Rapid Transit was built from the former terminal at St. George to a new baseball stadium that is home to the Staten Island Yankees farm team. The short (perhaps 1/4 mile) single track extension cost $4 million, and only operates before and after SI Yanks home games. - The NEW New Electric Railway Journal
Philadelphia: Regular light rail service on SEPTA Subway-Surface Route 10 will resume on September 2. The line had been partially "bustituted" in June due to summer road construction. - SEPTA
Washington DC: On August 23, WMATA placed in service the first of an order of 192 new subway cars built by CAF/AAI. The cars will help ease rush hour crowding on the increasingly popular subway in the US national capital. The recent boom in ridership also has WMATA considering changing its subway car seating arrangement from transverse seating to longitudinal bench seating like that used in the New York subway, allowing more standee room. - WMATA, AP, Washington Post
Montreal: A preliminary study is underway to reintroduce light rail service in Montreal. The proposed line would run along Park Avenue through the Mile End neighborhood, from the Jean Talon Metro station to Old Montreal. The cost of the line is estimated at CDN$245 million. Montreal's original streetcar service was discontinued in 1959. - Montreal Gazette
The Jack Doyle Electric Railway Historical Society, an informal group of streetcar and subway fans from across North America, hosts several charters per year. The JDERHS has scheduled its FIRST OVERSEAS CHARTER on September 16, 2001 in Blackpool, England. For more information on this and other upcoming JDERHS charters, see my JDERHS website. Membership is not required to attend these charters, and reservations are required only when specified.
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Much has changed on the Newark City Subway in recent years. At left is NJT PCC #6, restored into the gray livery of NJTransit predecessor PSCT. Photographed on the last day of NJT PCC service, the car clearly shows the recent addition of a pantograph, and is boarding passengers at the new Branch Brook Parkway station, built on the site of the former Franklin Avenue terminal. At right, in a view from nine years previous, disco-striped NJT #9 has just screeched around the Franklin Avenue loop and is ready to head back to Penn Station. It exhibits the original roofline and trolley pole, as well as the sunshades/vandal screens that had been mounted above the front windshields of all City Subway PCCs. Despite the difference of less than a decade, it is hard to believe that the two cars pictured have the same heritage and were photographed at almost the same location. Many thanks to Allen Morrison for providing the photo on the left. | ||
This section features photos of electric rail transit operations, past and present, throughout the Northeast US and eastern Canada. Contributions for this section are welcome. When submitting photos, please include a short caption with information about the photo, and of course don't forget to include your name so the photo can be duly credited.
Copyright ©1997 - 2001 Jonathan N. White. All rights reserved.
