James - Thanks, James. I find it interesting also. Tracklesses are truely a hybrid. I can think of no other vehicle that is more so.
Walt - No, I don't think so. In Boston, still, as well as other cities at that time, trackless trollies were looked at as supplemental transportation augmenting the fleet. Usually, traffic congestion, particularly along a narrow but main thoroughfare was where it was thought that the trackless trolley shined - and it did ! With their long poles and wide radius deviation from the wire, they could keep a line running when the same line with streetcars would be frozen in it's tracks. Boston liked them for this reason. San Francisco liked them for their hill climbing abilities with their electric motors. In fact, San Francisco was going to replace their cable cars with them until a grassroots mass protest petitioned to keep the cable cars running.
TD - There were three lines out of the Arborway, the 36 Charles River (1951), 34 Dedham Line (1952), and 32 Cleary Square (1953). In 1958, the system was abandoned and replaced with Mack buses. One of the reasons that are attributed to the small life span of the system is that the left-hand doors on the Pullman coaches were needed for the Harvard Square Tunnel. There is a rumored, possibly bigger picture here also, that you won't read about in any books. Reportedly, the powerful Harvard University immensely disliked the overhead wires outside it's institution in the Square. This necessitated putting more coaches in the tunnel. Heavens, it was so uncivilized, I'll have you know ! The ironic (and sad) part to this, considering that an entire well-run system was demolished, is that now, both trackless trolleys and buses unload regularly out the right side doors in the tunnel !
~Paul Joyce~
Moderator: Toy Trains, Model Railroading, Outdoor and Live Steam
Paul Joyce passed away in August, 2013. We honor his memory and his devotion at railroad.net.