Hi Zathros:
If i'm not mistaken it is in Philadelphia that these PCC keep on operating with new additions to the network. I saw once photos of a line that went for a while underground to a spacious station in the center.
The wiring to feed power to the trams and trolleys can look bad, but on the photo showing the green PCC what really looks drab is the street itself. There is nothing hapenning. You only go there if you really need to. It is a gloomy photo because it is raining, but there's no sign of cafes or any commerce. Seems a busy traffic street with not so wide sidewalk and two traffic lanes on each direction, plus the double track. It must be noisy.
The photos with trolleys also show the wiring, wich is double, there's that spider web look, but the environment looks more inviting for pedestrians. Different volumes to the street instead of that continuous wall of the first photo. The last one even shows some posts and chains to reassure pedestrians they're walking on a safe place.
I recently saw a photo of the Embarcadero in S. Francisco after the earthquake that destroyed the elevated highway there. Now it has only trams and pedestrians. The town hall whilst preparing to rebuild the highway, realised that people managed to find alternatives. So they took the chance of giving back the street to the pedestrian. Often planners forget that towns are for people, not for cars.
We are running a paralel line of thought to the topic, but honnestly I get more interested on the efect of railway transportation on society than how many hp a diesel have or wich voltage an electric train runs under.
If i'm not mistaken it is in Philadelphia that these PCC keep on operating with new additions to the network. I saw once photos of a line that went for a while underground to a spacious station in the center.
The wiring to feed power to the trams and trolleys can look bad, but on the photo showing the green PCC what really looks drab is the street itself. There is nothing hapenning. You only go there if you really need to. It is a gloomy photo because it is raining, but there's no sign of cafes or any commerce. Seems a busy traffic street with not so wide sidewalk and two traffic lanes on each direction, plus the double track. It must be noisy.
The photos with trolleys also show the wiring, wich is double, there's that spider web look, but the environment looks more inviting for pedestrians. Different volumes to the street instead of that continuous wall of the first photo. The last one even shows some posts and chains to reassure pedestrians they're walking on a safe place.
I recently saw a photo of the Embarcadero in S. Francisco after the earthquake that destroyed the elevated highway there. Now it has only trams and pedestrians. The town hall whilst preparing to rebuild the highway, realised that people managed to find alternatives. So they took the chance of giving back the street to the pedestrian. Often planners forget that towns are for people, not for cars.
We are running a paralel line of thought to the topic, but honnestly I get more interested on the efect of railway transportation on society than how many hp a diesel have or wich voltage an electric train runs under.
