Nostalgia & History > Traction Action: Berkeley, Calif.

This photo is good for the T.O. crowd in Berkeley. North Shattuck, heart of the Gourmet Ghetto, busy shopping neighborhood, and home of Chez Panisse. I appreciate the look back as this is where my family did their shopping back in the day.

Go back 57 years and it was a different scene. The pinkish building behind the train and the pointed roof building at the corner have been there since time began and remain to this day. The former, once a French laundry, became the French Hotel when the neighborhood became upscale. The latter is still selling produce. Everything else has been replaced. Look and admire all that vintage Detroit metal. No plastic vehicles.

As for the train, it just departed Vine Street station for a trip to San Francisco. The articulated unit dates from the mid-1930s with some components much older than that. SP rails and overhead wire saw Key System use from 1941 until the end of train service in 1958. Track was pretty bad near the end of service and the pavement next to the rails wasn't too great either. Shattuck Avenue got a major rebuilding when the trains were gone. After the F-train reached San Francisco, it would work the A-line to downtown Oakland, then reverse the process. Headways were every 30 minutes. The "B" end, the non pantograph end, was where the conductor worked.

If ever in the area, ride one of these relics at the Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction. wrm.org for info.
They've been running there longer than they did on the Key System. How time flies. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/14 00:31 by stash.

---

I think the tan station wagon is a DeSoto, the Chrysler product that sponsored "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx. There's another Key Bridge Unit at Orange Empire, KSTL 167, but it has a bad traction motor and it's below some Pacific Electric cars on the priority list. Also, as the folks at Rio Vista Jct. have found, these units may look cool, but they're a major pain to repair. Many years ago I got to run 167 and noted that the controller looked a lot older. Our PE "Blimps", two of which date back to 1913, have automatic acceleration, but Key System apparently used controllers that dated back to the dawn of the "multiple unit" era.

They also don't have air conditioning or opening windows. Might not be needed for Oakland, but it's sure needed for Perris!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/14 08:40 by PHall.

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think the tan station wagon is a DeSoto, the
> Chrysler product that sponsored "You Bet Your
> Life" with Groucho Marx.
My first car was a '53 Desoto Hardtop. I never saw a Desoto wagon, until now.

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think the tan station wagon is a DeSoto, the
> Chrysler product that sponsored "You Bet Your
> Life" with Groucho Marx. There's another Key
> Bridge Unit at Orange Empire, KSTL 167, but it has
> a bad traction motor and it's below some Pacific
> Electric cars on the priority list. Also, as the
> folks at Rio Vista Jct. have found, these units
> may look cool, but they're a major pain to repair.
> Many years ago I got to run 167 and noted that
> the controller looked a lot older. Our PE
> "Blimps", two of which date back to 1913, have
> automatic acceleration, but Key System apparently
> used controllers that dated back to the dawn of
> the "multiple unit" era.

Key System Oakland, Calif.

TOTAL NUMBER OF RAPID-TRANSIT CARS OPERATED: 144 (January, 1939)
The following information covers
TWENTY-THREE TWO-SECTION ARTICULATED RAPID-TRANSIT CARS
Built by Bethlehem Steel Equipped by General Electric
Placed in operation across San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge: January 15, 1939
Seating capacity: 140 (66 in section A; 74 in section B)
Maximum passenger capacity: 298 (140 seated, 158 standing)
Total weight of car equipped (without load): 137,625 lb
Weight of body with equipment: 60,800 lb
Weight of trucks with equipment: 76,825 lb
Length of two-section car over buffers: 110 ft, 5 1/2 in.
Length of each section: A-52 ft, 8 1/2 in.; B-57 ft, 8 1/2 in.
Width over side plates: 8 ft, 10 in.
Width of aisle: 25 1/2 in.
Width of seat: 32 in.
Truck centers, each section: A-42 ft, 5 in.; B-44 ft, 11 in.
Wheel base of truck: 6 ft, 8 in.
Track gauge: 4 ft. 8 1/2 in.
----------------------------------------------------

Type of truck: 4-wheel, cast-steel frame; built by General Steel Castings Corp.
Wheel diameter: 34 in.
Number and type of motors: Type GE-240 (4 on each car)
Hourly horsepower rating per motor: 105
Gear ratio and type of gearing: 57 to 18, G-E Grade M
Control: General Electric Type M, non-automatic
Balancing speed (550 volts, seated load): 41.5 mph
Maximum accelerating rate: 1.75 mphps
Compressor: General Electric Type CP-28 (2 on each car)
Brakes: clasp-type air brakes
Maximum braking rate: 2.5 mphps
Motor-generator set: GMG-131
In addition to the 23 new cars covered by the above data, the Key System also
operates in bridge service 65 two-section articulated cars which were built locally,
using trucks and frames of existing single cars. Forty-six of these cars have G-E
motors. All 88 cars have G-E Type M control, G-E motor-generator sets for battery
charging, and equipment for automatic transfer from pantograph to third rail.

KRK

Not much thought seemed to go into building this equipment. To get some air circulation windows were added to the end doors. Then when more air was needed, the door would be propped open.



PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They also don't have air conditioning or opening
> windows. Might not be needed for Oakland, but it's
> sure needed for Perris!

The GE type 240 motor was also used in the Pacific Electric 1100-class cars, which weighed about 20 tons less than the Key units.

The Key Units used a variety of electrical equipment, a lot of it slavadged from the 500s (wood cars) and 650s (center entrance cars), which means that in order to determine what type of motor, air compressor, etc. you have to specify a unit number. For example, the control equipment (controllers, switch group, reversers) on the three at WRM (the 182, 186, and 187) was all made by Westinghouse, and the plates on the controllers read: "Sprague-GE Multiple Control System Manufactured by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co.".

From Harre Demoro's book: units 136-153 used GE-66 motors, 154-164 used WH-302As, 180-187 were equipped with WH 555CL motors, which had been built for Camden Bridge cars in Philly but not delivered. Apparently this was a last minute deal because 180-187 had been built with 240 motors, and a few of these 240s were swapped into 133-135. 100-164 consisted of two two-motor cars permanently coupled together (which means two switch groups per unit), 165 through 187 were four-motor cars (one switch group per unit).

Not mentioned in his book but I once read somewhere in the Key System's records that some of the units had DH-25 air compressors (and there were two compressor per unit, not two per car).

I'll have to check the records from Vernon Sappers.. It gives motors, air compressors, type of control, and every other darn thing for ALL of KEY's equipment.. Work Equipment, Bridge Units and Streetcars too.
Fascinating reading!

KRK

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also, as the
> folks at Rio Vista Jct. have found, these units
> may look cool, but they're a major pain to repair.

The permanent skirts imply they were designed to be serviced over pits.

>I'll have to check the records from Vernon Sappers.. It gives motors, air compressors, type of control, and every other darn thing for ALL of KEY's equipment.. Work Equipment, Bridge Units and Streetcars too.
Fascinating reading!

Vernon and Harre wrote from the same set of sources. Vernon's posthumously published book is virtually (and frustratingly) devoid of these technical details for the equipment, given the records Vernon had.

What any particular car (and unit) had at a given point in time was subject to change (like the previously mentioned traction motor shuffling in the Units). However one thing is certain: the Key Units at Rio Vista, which are the last instance of GE Non-Automatic Type M built, can MU with the Shipyard Cars, one of the earliest instances of the same control system (and which influenced the Key to buy the system for the 500s in 1903). There are many practical realities like coupling and MU cables which make doing this a bit out there (and the Units go about 8-10 mph faster), but it just goes to show "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

>> Also, as the folks at Rio Vista Jct. have found, these units may look cool, but they're a major pain to repair.

There are some of us who have known that for several decades.

>The permanent skirts imply they were designed to be serviced over pits.

Originally the opening around the 3rd rail shoe was a lot smaller, with a flip-up section for working on the shoe mechanism. In later years, the flip-up section was removed, resulting in the opening you see in the OP's pic of the 171 and today at RVJ and Perris.