Indeed, Mick - a running tram always beats the alternative.

Assuming that they did this because they had no alternative (why else would they do it?) I'd say maintenance would have to be pretty good, both to keep things running and to conserve the limited resources they had. If PCC cars were cannibalised for spares that meant carbodies were sitting around doing no more than collecting bird shit when they could have been out collecting revenue, and some bright spark did a bit of lateral thinking connecting the stack of unused K35s in the workshop to the fleet of otherwise good trams lacking controls parked outside it.

I reckon a K35 in a PCC is innovation born of necessity, and the perfect antidote to the “too hard, can’t be done, take em away and scrap em, buy buses” mentality that was/is the case all too often. Alexandria tramways have a long history, and have survived against the odds, and this is an example of how they survived by using what they had on hand. Another survivor like that is the Hershey interurban in Cuba, keeping their ancient Brill cars running till they got the secondhand Barcelona cars.

Still, a lot of current though.

Tony G

> On 12 Aug 2017, at 1:44 am, Mick Duncankitbuny@... [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:

>

> Gday Tony

>

> Assuming arab maintainence, probably a lot

>

> Filing and lubing fingers and segments would have taken place every day

>

> I hope they also had line breakers, which with the controllers

> probably had a short unhappy life.

>

> Still, a running tram is better than none

>

> There is no way known Id put the key into neutral after applying 4th

> before the tram had stopped

>

> Cheers, Mick

>

>

> On 10/08/2017 9:44 PM, Tony Gallowayarg@... mailto:arg@aapt.net..au [TramsDownUnder] wrote:

>> Those series pairs of motors each equal 110hp, X 2 for the full set of four. A K35 circuit in a normal 2 motor configuration would likely be rated for 2 X 65hp. Current pulled by 220hp @600v = 273.4A, flowing through a direct controller in a cab - that’s a lot of juice. I wonder how often they had flashovers ?

>>

>> Alexandria also had articulated Düwags from Copenhagen - did any get the K35 treatment as well ?

>>

>> Tony G

>>

>>

>>> On 10 Aug 2017, at 7:29 pm, Mick Duncankitbuny@... mailto:kitbuny@bigpond.net.au [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@... mailto:TramsDownUnder@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>>>

>>> Gday Tony

>>>

>>> Your right, Alexandra probably would have kept the 300V motors in series

>>> pairs and then you would have series,series parallel control

>>>

>>> Not hard as the K35 can be used as a 2 motor comtroller and each pair would be treated as one motor as far as the controller wiring is concerned

>>>

>>> I guess the arabs wouldnt care about the excessive current in the half of

>>> the reverse barrel in use.

>>>

>>> No dynamic brakes.

>>>

>>> Cheers, Mick

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>>

>

>

>