Nostalgia & History > Trolley Pole Wheels and Shoes

Probably most of you have never seen the end of a trolley pole which contacts the wire.  The end is either a wheel that rolls along the trolley wire or a shoe that slides along it.  So the shoe does not wear the wire, it has a graphite (carbon) insert which can be easily seen in the photo.  The PCC Streetcars operating in Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco use trolley shoes.

The photo is of the trolley pole stash at Orange Empire Railway Museum taken in November 2009.  

Marty Bernard.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/15 16:48 by MartyBernard.

---

Pacific Electric (and probably other systems) used solid shoes and greased the trolley wire on a weekly schedule.  They had 00150, a "home-brew" car with towers on each end (looked rather like a medieval siege engine).  It went by my house every Monday afternoon, with one trolley pole up for power, and another one with the grease applicator.  The car still exists, but in rather poor condition and not in public view at Orange Empire.  When I visited Pittsburgh in 1971, I noticed that, even though their remaining streetcar lines were all served by PCCs, the trolley poles were still the wheel type.

DNRY122 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pacific Electric (and probably other systems) used
> solid shoes and greased the trolley wire on a
> weekly schedule.  They had 00150, a "home-brew"
> car with towers on each end (looked rather like a
> medieval siege engine).  It went by my house
> every Monday afternoon, with one trolley pole up
> for power, and another one with the grease
> applicator.  The car still exists, but in rather
> poor condition and not in public view at Orange
> Empire.  When I visited Pittsburgh in 1971, I
> noticed that, even though their remaining
> streetcar lines were all served by PCCs, the
> trolley poles were still the wheel type.

Pacific Electric's steeple cab units used trolley wheels instead of the shoes so they could back up during switching.

The PE box motors had wheels and some of the Butterfly Twelves did.  I remember how the afternoon westbound box motor would go by our house, and when it got to a certain spot on the trolley wire west of 5th Ave., the wheel would draw a big arc.  I don't think the shoes on the passenger cars did that.  And I think the Twelves that ran to Balboa had wheels because the ocean-front wire wasn't greased.

As additional information, Twin Cities Rapid Transit cars all had wheels, homebuilts and PCC's. 
Since most TCRT routes ended in wyes, it makes sense they would use them for the reverse moves.
What I remember most is being surprised when I learned TCRT used wheels as I had thought that
a rare occurance.  How wrong I was.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA