Passenger Trains > Trolley controls - then and now

Pic one - Old controls from the San Francisco trolley car museum

Pic two - New controls from a San Francisco PCC - throttle is foot op accelerator pedal,
brake is pedal, whistle is push-button, door is toggle switch .....

Pic 3 - Market Street - these PCC's are only old on the outside



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/12 11:43 by ArgyleEagle.

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Actually, those foot pedal controls are original. PCCs are kinda weird like that!

True, go ride the Mattipan High Speed line in Boston on the PCC cars there and you will see the same controls. I am old enough to remember them in Washington, DC, again no hand controls.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

Wow! you make me feel old. I remember riding the Detroit street cars as a kid (the DSR - Detroit Street Railway) where there was a "Motorman" and a "Conductor". The conductor collected fares about halfway thru the car before you could get out the rear door.

They were eventually converted so the motorman collected the fares and the conductor position was eliminated.

Then the PCC cars arrived. I was really impressed with the quiet ride and the fact that the operator had foot pedal controls. Unbelievable!

Now they are restored antiques - wait a damn minute - am I that old?

Chicago PCCs did not have the foot pedals, they had two spring-loaded levers you pushed down on to activate. Left was brake and right was power. This setup was specified in labor-friendly Chicago so both the motorman's hands were kept occupied and therefore unable to collect fares, thus protecting the Conductor's job.

Most Chicago streetcars, including the PCCs, were set up as rear-entry cars with the Conductor's station in back. Some cars were later converted to one-man, pay-as-you-enter cars but they were generally limited to lightly-used routes and branches.

One other weird fact about Chicago PCCs: As they were wider than previous cars, the carbody was offset relative to the frame/trucks roughly 2 1/2 inches to the right (curb side) to provide sufficient clearance between cars on double track.

NZ

Although Muni's first and second groups of PCCs had standard foot controls, they were operated by two-person crews until 1954, when The City's voters approved repeal of the "Two-man Car Ordinance". They finally realized that on buses, the drivers not only had to stop, go, handle fare transactions, and answer questions, they also had to steer their vehicles, something that streetcar operators didn't have to worry about.

And to show the next generation in "trolley" controls, here's a look at the controls of a Los Angeles Metro light rail unit--closer to the Starship Enterprise than the Toonerville Trolley:

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