BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

Trolley Talk

I have decided to open this forum and title it ‘Trolley Talk’ for those of you members and guests who enjoy reliving the golden days of traction.

I’ll get the ball rolling by reprising a piece that I had originally written for BusTalk.net some years ago – enjoy!

Question; has a trolley motorman ever been electrocuted?

The answer is a rather surprising yes! In fact, there were many such freak occurrences across the country particularly in the 1890’s.

The now defunct ‘Brooklyn Eagle’ newspaper mentioned a number of these mishaps (both fatal and non fatal) in a series of articles that they did on the history of that borough’s trolley cars some years ago.

As do today's modern trolley buses, trolley cars of yore usually derived their motive power from overhead wires which fed electricity to their motors and accessories via a spring loaded pole (also known as a catenary) that spanned from the roof of the car to the cables above. Each car had one such device on either end of the roof and, depending on which direction the car was heading, the particular pole at the rear would be the one in contact with power.

It was the motorman’s chore at the end of each run to reverse the poles by pulling the active one down with the use of a heavy non conductive rope attachment and then unleashing the other.

This procedure was generally not hazardous during dry and even light rainy weather but during heavy storms the ropes could become so saturated that they actually became electrical conductors and could cause bodily harm to an operator.

The fix was simple; each motorman was issued a pair of heavily insolated rubber gloves along with rubber bottomed shoes – they were also advised not to allow the wet rope to touch the ground for fear of damage to the equipment.

Trolley manufacturer’s also insulated the windup spools for ‘parked’ ropes.

This problem became mute in Manhattan when, just after the turn of the century, the city banned all overhead wiring in streets and forced the traction companies to bury a ‘third rail’ in the pavement.

Mr. Linsky – Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY

Typical NY area traction car below.