Re: Re: Melbourne Historic Fleet - thoughts

Peter,

The real problem, I think, is that Melbourne is a huge, complex tram system
with many crossings and shunts. If we eliminate trolley poles entirely, we
can get rid of all the frogs. Basically on panto only operations you just
clip two copper wires together and run them away from each other (or cross
them over and run them away from each other). It gets rid of all the brass,
much of the weight and simplifies copper wire alignment. It probably would
get rid of a lot of span wires as well and so some poles as well.

San Francisco is stuck with an often unsightly hanging nightmare that looks
like a copper overcast at some intersections because of its extensive
trolley bus system. So the advantages of panto only operation are not so
clear cut.

A panto only overhead is clean, light, simple, long wearing, low maintenance
and alignment is not as critical.

Poles look nice but they are stupid things to have on top of a tram.

Bob Murphy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter D. Ehrlich" <[email protected]>
To: "TramsDownUnder" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 12:57 AM
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Re: Melbourne Historic Fleet - thoughts

In a message dated 28 Nov 2001 @ 2223 PST, "Bill Bolton"
<[email protected]> wrote:

<[snipped]>

The fact
that Melbourne should have a single tramway Museum as big and
successful as Sydney. While utilising the fact the there is a whole

tram

system there which these Historic vehicles should be demonstrated on!

The cost maintaining the "whole tram system" in a state where it is
suitable for operation of historic vehicle would be prohibitive and
serve no good purpose. An argument could probably be made to maintain
a few routes capable of both trolley and pantograph operation.

The issue of raising the traction voltage is going to bite sooner or
later, so even mixed trolley/pan operation may become a moor point
eventually.

Cheers,

Bill

San Francisco Municipal Railway does just that without difficulty. The
entire surface network outside the Church & Duboce and West Portal subway
portals is both pan and pole-compatible. Vintage cars pull out and in

over

the J-Church mixed witl LRVs, and can run on M-Ocean View, L-Taraval, and
(when rebuilt by 2003) K-Ingleside. They also can operate on the N-Judah,
but are barred there due to clearance restrictions. When the

E-Embarcadero

opens in 2003 or 2004, pole and pantograph cars will again be mixed.
Indeed, we have occasionally operated vintage cars down to Caltrain Depot.
So in this sense, a Melbourne vintage operation is definitely do-able.

Voltage considerations, however, are more of a concern. Take the case of
the Newark, NJ city subway. While the PCCs were still operating, and the
Kinki-Sharyo LRVs were being tested on weekends, there was a dual voltage
setup. The power folks kept it at 600v during normal operation. As soon

as

the last PCC pulled back to Penn Station on Friday night, it was raised to
750v for the LRVs, and set back to 600v for the following Monday morning.
Well, allegedly, one morning the power people forgot to reset the voltage,
and the first PCC pulled out and promptly fried its motors.

Then here is how San Jose neatly solved the problem. Its vintage cars run
only on series, with the exception of Milan 2001, whose motors were

rewired

for 750v. The Milan car has a pantograph and can operate over the entire
LRT network, while the rest of the cars are pole only and are reportedly
restricted to the Younger Street/Transit Mall/Convention Center route,
though one car--Santa Clara Interurban 1--went on its own power up to Old
Ironsides for its inaugural day of operation--reportedly without any
problems.

Milantram





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