Vintage High Res Pictures Discussion

3rdrail wrote:From DOB, here's the view the other way at the Summer Street Collector's Booth...

dieciduej wrote:Looking at this photo, the only place I can remember a turnstyle like the one pictured was at the old Sullivan Sq. Station.

JoeD

Sullivan wouldn't have signs directing passengers to R/T cars for Cambridge/Dorchester, Joe.

How long ago was the "graveyard" picture taken. Are the Boston PCCs still there?

highgreen215 wrote:How long ago was the "graveyard" picture taken. Are the Boston PCCs still there?

I don't know anything about the picture other than a friend found it on a Russian site. This is the link to the photo: http://mainfun.ru/image/36/116/15.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I cannot vouch for the safety or anything on that site.

One person has suggested to me "the car yard at the end of the B line". Is there a spur there?

Rbts Stn wrote:One person has suggested to me "the car yard at the end of the B line". Is there a spur there?

No. What you can see from the platform or on Google Maps is all that there is and ever has been at Lake Street Yard.

Rbts Stn wrote:
One person has suggested to me "the car yard at the end of the B line". Is there a spur there?

Yes there are. There are multiple spurs. There is a loop for cars terminating and reversing direction and 8 spurs that originally eminate from that loop track, giving access to outside (6 tracks) and inside (2 tracks) the barn. It's a different yard in that the loop circles the entire yard.


http://photos.cityrails.net/showpic/?20 ... d&BOOL=ALL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, I can see that on Google Maps. The question was really as to whether any tracks extended beyond the yard.

No, the question was really if there were any spurs at the end of the B Line and there are- all inside the loop.

But there's nothing off the back end of the Lake Street loop that runs into a wooded area like seen in the photo.

I'm thinking this must be at a museum someplace... I know Seashore's got a ton of MBTA PCCs sitting around, many of which are parts and/or will never get around to being restored, but I don't know if there are any stored off in the woods like pictured here, and I imagine if there was, someone familiar with Seashore would have recognized the setting. I was thinking perhaps a place like Buckeye Lake, Ohio, where some guy amassed a collection of streetcars which just sat around in the weather for years and deteriorated to the point that many had to be scrapped, but there does not seem to be any indication the guy at Buckeye Lake had any MBTA PCCs in the collection. So, 'tis a bit of a mystery.

I will go out on a limb here (no pun intended) and say that the photo was very likely NOT taken anywhere on MBTA property. Too bad car numbers aren't visible, because that would go a long way to identifying where the photo was taken.

I ran into a reliable source, hiding in the shadows of an MBTA garage, who gave the me the locations of the PCC cars in the woods.

"The location is actually Windber PA, those are part of a group of 14 MBTA wartime PCCs that were sold to a company called Vintage Electric Streetcar back in 1991. They also own PCCs from SEPTA, PAT, and GCRTA. You can see a yellow ex-GCRTA Shaker car in the photo with the Boston cars. Their business plan was to buy used PCCs at scrap prices and resell them later. So far, they have been sitting there for 20 plus years with no takers."

You can see them on Google maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=1400+Som ... 15963&z=19

JoeD

PS The funny thing my source looks like Hal Holbrook.

Thanks, Joe! That makes sense... Vintage Electric is one of the disposition locations listed for the PCC fleet in Mr. Belcher's MBTA All-Time Inventory:

http://transithistory.org/roster/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT: Looking at the picture... wow, sure are a lot of PCCs that were "saved" from the torch only to sit in the woods and rot...

It seems as if you can be almost anywhere in the country now (and probably then some) and see old MBTA equipment. Most (if not all) are rusting away in silence. I exchanged a series of emails with a gentleman in East Troy, Wisconsin a few years ago who was running East Boston Tunnel cars as one car trains on his farm, many PCC's have been sent all over, East Boston cars have gone to the United States Department of Transportation for crash testing, and a couple of 600's (0616-17) recently got placed inside the Broadway Tunnel for emergency training. There's even a mystery here as well. The borough of Brooklyn revoked Bob Diamond's right to maintain his fleet of PCC's (many of which were ex-Boston) at their previous location, so he placed them on a pier in Red Hook for storage while he looked at his options. One day, while visiting the cars, a few were missing ! They just mysteriously disappeared ! I understand that the NYPD was called who interviewed potential witnesses including the security guards who supposedly were working at the time that the cars were removed. They "saw nothing", or perhaps I should say "saw nuttin".

The crime scene courtesy of my friend Sheryl:

I ran into that guy again in the shadows the garage again and gave me more information:

http://www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc-quer ... agelen=200

JoeD

Links to old pictures :

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 7893_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://sphotos-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho ... 1708_n.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 3768_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 8460_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 2146_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 0787_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://sphotos-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho ... 2577_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://sphotos-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho ... 7077_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1173_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 016%2C1082" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks, Teamdriver, for making me feel younger. Dunno if the first picture was taken on April 1, but the rollsign reads "Arborway via Huntington," and the PCCs are headed away from Arborway, about to swing off Centre and onto South Huntington. (Too much of my childhood was spent at the A&P rounding up stuff to bring home around the corner onto Moraine Street.)

J-Man ,

The "Queen Mary", Boston's only non left side door PCC streetcar ever. Built in 1937, scrapped in 1953. Because there were no doors on the left side, this streetcar never saw revenue service in the subway. This photo shows the so called "Queen" on Washington Street by Brookley Road in Jamaica Plain, circa 1940
Joe Testagrose photo

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 3113_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hyde Square, Jamaica Plain circa 1940
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1090_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Along Ipswich and Lansdowne Streets, 1956
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 6133_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dudley Station
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1314_n.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;