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When is it time to order replicas in order to reduce wear on historic equipment?

Sloan

Ditto: the old fabric is disappearing. New motors, air conditioning, ...

It's an interesting issue. Several of the cars now on the roster were only carbodies when MATA restored them first. The Dallas Stone & Weber car rides on Melbourne Trucks and motors, the Birney has a home-made truck, and the new red and white car had no trucks when it was acquired (though it did have a nearly complete interior). So, it is not as if they are stripping complete, 100% historic cars for the operation. To put it best, they are adapting old carbodies to work on a modern transit system.

That being said, I wonder if the better long term solution would be to have someone like Gomaco build new cars that look like the old Stone & Weber Dallas cars, but with modern motors, A/C. Have the PCCs rebuilt by someone like Brookville with A/C, then use the remainder of the fleet for special occasions, charters, etc.

we seem to have a crazy trend happening, the early 1900a of the growth of the streetcar-interurbans only to see the mid century of mass abandonments of such lines because of the car, now growth and too many cars...the cry for the alternative clean energy, guess what...

I used to work for MATA. It was great seeing them run every day, and having the opportunity to operate them, but it was sad to see them being modified to include those ugly AC/Heating units, which, might I add, proved to be fairly unreliable. They were designed to be used on motor homes, and not be put up to such strenuous use. For the short while I was there after those units were added, cars were constantly going in the shop to have a burned out unit replaced.

But yes, I think that they should use replica streetcars, such as the ones built by Gomaco. For one weekend in 1993, they actually tested that single truck Brill replica that Gomaco made. It seemed to operate pretty well, from what I've heard. If they could get an entire fleet of those, it would be nice. But then again, I'm only dreaming here...

The McKinney car in "a rail yard in Chicago" is actually a Boston/Dallas PCC in storage courtesy of the Illinois Railway Museum. A fleet of these cars would be a good choice for growing the trolley service, and there is a firm or two in the business of rebuilding PCCs for extended life.

Where is this cultural craving for air conditioning coming from? I don't understand it, especially in light of the trend towards more casual and more revealing clothing.

Another example: The 1914 sternwheeler Belle of Louisville received air conditioning this year.

If you have ever been in Dallas in July, you will realize that it isn't a mere cultural craving. Concrete/asphalt is a real heat multiplier, and short of hell itself downtown Dallas is about as miserable as it can get. Plus, all the buildings work to limit air circulation. An unlagged backhead in a vestibule cab would be about as livable.

This is correct. When I was working there, I hated working the hot summer days. The only A/C we could get was called "the 20/20 system", in which we'd open 20 windows and go 20 mph. Of course, the high humidity didn't help in the least. I was very grateful when the A/Cs were up and running.

There is a new book out on the "culture" of air conditioning and its effect on life in the United States. That said, I sold off a Dodge Aries that I had used for over ten years when the air conditioning compressor failed for the third time. Not sure if it's a real folk song or just a mythical title:
Hush little luxury, don't you cry.
You'll be a necessity by and by.

Folks,
i am sure most of you have heard of the "F Line" we have here in San Francisco. It used a fleet of re-built PCCs and an assortment of other cars including a Blackpool "Boat Car' which was imported for the heritage line back when it was called the "Trolley Festival" They called them street cars in the Bay Area.

While we have natural air conditioning most of the time; it is nice to step into a modern LRV on those rare days when it does get hot!

There are another bunch of PCCs from Newark,NJ being rebuilt for the line. They want to extend it further down the Embarcadero to the more or less new down town base ball park that we have now. it is currently served by the T-Third Street line of LRVs and a shuttle bus to the closeest BART station.

They are putting 22,000 people a day on the "F Line" this time of year. I doubt I will be able to ride it again before Labor Day. I think that is the most for any heritage street car line in the country. And of course the Cable Cars are as popular as ever. The #15 is a brand new from the ground up car that went in service this summer.

Is that a replica or just the use of a type of technology from the 1870s?

Ted Miles