Re: Re: Yapper's (sort of)

Rmember the great tour we did in 52, turned out to be the last as a window
fell out (due to rust) the next week and she was retired, 700 nee 53, lasted
a bit longer.

Gerg

--I note in old documention that there was a proposal to build front
entrance cars with drop centres.
I believe the frontal design would have resembled the VR cars 52 - 54
series.

These three cars were the undoubtably the most misguided effort in
the history of electric trams in Victoria.
They took a design from the PCC cars of America meant for a driving
position to one side. PCC ( and peter Witt cars )using that style
had been operating in the USA very successfully for years up to then.

Then in 1942 Newport Railway workshops created these three lemons
based on the designs of the MMTB W6.
If they had continued sticking to that plan all would have been well,
But for some reason the driver was positioned directly behind the
centre pillar of the PCC style windscreen.
In those days with the availability of more modern controllers....
They went and fitted ancient huge K35's !!!!!
To round off the sillyness then prevailing, they made the centre
doors smaller than W6 design ( They altered that years later on 53
(700).
The last feature simply amazes me
.
After creating these three well built but freakish cars, they went
and fitted them with state of the art dream machine Brill 77E trucks
as used on the MMTB L classes, replaced by MMTB 15's later.

The front entrance idea applied to these cars would probably have
worked, moving the driver over to the right side and installing a
passenger entry to the left.An extension of the frames would have
been needed.
These mods were done years later by the VR to two of their older cars
anyway.

I speak with some authority having driven 52 and 53 from Essendon
depot on their stamping ground of Footscray - Moonee Ponds Route 82
off and on for 17 years, and I still have a lean to the left and walk
in tight left circles when not concentrating.

Having said all that, from a Gunzel point of view these cars were
very interesting , and myself and a couple of other people at
Essendon never missed a chance to take 52 and 53 to South Melbourne
or Brunswick when required for wheel grinding. I have mentioned this
before in these postings.

WGB

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