From: ahk@chinet.com

John Levine  wrote:

>>notoriously nasty winter, had to be pulled off Chicago's rapid transit
>>routes that shared r-o-w with expressways as motors kept burning out
>>when the snow was sucked it. That couldn't really be blamed on the
>>manufacturer.

>Sure it could.  It's entirely predictable that if you run equipment in
>places where it snows heavily, you're going to get snow into anything
>near ground level.  This may not have occurred to people who live in
>Seattle, where an inch of snow calls for the National Guard.  (Some
>wag one said we're really lucky that cars are designed in Detroit
>rather than in Miami.)

The "L" doesn't have a lot of operation at grade. As you quoted me saying
above, the issue was with routes operating in rights of way shared with
various expressways. It was also a problem on the Howard and Evanston
"L" as a significant portion of those routes are on embankment, and
on the Skokie Swift which operates in an extensive cut across portions
of south Evanston. The literal grade-level operations ran just fine as
much of it was readily accessible for snow removal. Snow cleared from
the highway lanes ended up in the transit reservation. Two of the three
expressways had particularly narrow transit reservations, exaccerbating
the situation. Even under the best of circumstances, water runoff from
the highway lanes tends to end up in the transit reservation, which led
to premature failure of communication and power distribution and other
support equipment, not to mention that the ballast drains poorly.

That's not the manufacturer's fault. That was a situation created by
the city when it chose and built the transit routes.

Even in interurban days, we've read that CNS&M RR, which did operate at
grade through suburban territory, lost plenty of motors during winters
with heavy snowfall.

Motors need to be cooled. They need air intake. They need to be in a place
under the railcar where they can provide traction. It's just the nature.

Anyway, CTA spec'ed how the motors were ventilated. It wasn't the
manufacturer's problem.

Here's a newspaper article that explains some of the problems
from the winter of 1979.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1979/02/04/page/1/article/our
not-so-rapid-transit-what-went-wrong/

"Our not-so-rapid transit: What went wrong"
By David Young
Transportation editor
February 4, 1979

>>What did Chicago do different from Boston and San Francisco?

>I don't remember the timing; was this at the same time or later?

I thought all three orders were in the early 1970s. The article I
cited says the "L" cars were ordered in 1974. I was on a family vacation
in San Francisco in 1976. Muni Metro subway level had just opened.
N Judah was already operating in it. It had the vestibule with
steps for boarding from platforms in the street, and floor-height
boarding in the subway.

>>It would be lovely if transit agencies spec'ed PCCs. Maintenance was
>>relatively simple and straightforward. But they're not modern and
>>no one would do that.

>If only.  They have problems with materials like asbestos but I
>wouldn't think that would be hard to update.  They still seem to work
>reliably on SF Muni's F line which is all historic trolleys.

I'm sure asbestos was the manufacturing method at the time; it's not
literally part of the PCC spec. Anyway, car bodies would have been
individually spec'ed per transit system or even per transit route.
The common stuff--trucks and control systems--was what was in the PCC spec.

You could probably write a decent spec based on the best features of
streetcar bodies from the 1920s and 1930s, learning from mistakes.

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