Large Scale Central

REVIEW: New Aristo Street Car - foible are wheel flanges?

Reviews
#21

Jerry-
Thanks for the reminder – albeit with your technical knoweledge – comparisions are difficult unless all variables are considered.
I think, in fairness to my reaction, I was surprized at the amount of power per the speed. Now, the real question is do others, who own the same product, experience the identical power needs. Yes, correct, how is the speed measured other than by the owner’s previous comparison to other products - e.g. the Harland street car with lighting on? Stuck again by a comparison.

Hopefully, other owners will weigh in with their appraisal of the product.
Thanks, again.

Wendell

#22

The PCC cars that have been here all “run slow”… It seems a combination of gearing (remember the intermediate shaft) and the motor itself.

Under DCC, full speed was not very fast at all. I did most of my testing under DCC. The car does indeed run pretty darn close to prototype speed.

How’s the gear noise Wendell? They are noisy out of the box. Can you compare the before and after from memory?

Greg

#23

I’m a member of the Bay Area Electric Railway Association. They have several PCC cars in their collection at the Western Railway Museum, and I have spent hours riding them. I have also ridden the PCC cars on San Francisco’s historic Market Street ‘F’ line. Several years ago, my wife & I were on a BAERA charter trip that spent an entire day on a single PCC car traveling over every streetcar line in San Francisco, including a line that has not had streetcars run for something like 20 years. The only place we didn’t go was through the twin peaks tunnel because the PCC cars’ power pickup system is not compatible with the physical wiring in the tunnel.

In all of those trips, I have never seen a PCC car get to a speed much over 30 or so mph. I just checked with the WRM shop supervisor and he says the PCC cars were designed for a top speed of 50 mph, but he also said that in his experience, that speed was not commonly attained.

Remember, these were the tracked equivalent of a city bus. They typically ran on the city street along with rubber tired vehicles, and stopped every two blocks. Automobiles on high density city streets are usually limited to speeds less than 30mph and are frequently unable to move even that fast due to congestion. Without dedicated right of ways, the PCC streetcars were subject to the same restrictions, along with the need to accelerate and decelerate every couple of blocks. Even the cities with dedicated right of ways had level crossings (cross streets with signals) at the end of every block. No time or distance to get to high speeds, then stop at the next traffic light.

As a matter of reference: In 1:29 scale, 30 mph is only ~90ft / minute or ~1.5ft / second. As I wrote before, I don’t have one, but it does sound like Aristocraft got the speed (close to?) right.

Happy (Low & Slow) RRing,

Jerry

#24

OK, noise about the same. Yes, noisy – again compared to two other products from Hartland.
No problems with it staying on the track. Great engineering effort by Greg.
Power? Yes, more voltage, again compared to Hartland products, for the same speed. On the MRC “big” 10 amp. pack, the voltage is close to 19 volts to give the car open area speed. Fine, will run it as is.
Wendell

#25

Jerry,
You said - "In all of those trips, I have never seen a PCC car get to a speed much over 30 or so mph. I just checked with the WRM shop supervisor and he says the PCC cars were designed for a top speed of 50 mph, but he also said that in his experience, that speed was not commonly attained.

Remember, these were the tracked equivalent of a city bus. They typically ran on the city street along with rubber tired vehicles, and stopped every two blocks. Automobiles on high density city streets are usually limited to speeds less than 30 mph and are frequently unable to move even that fast due to congestion. Without dedicated right of ways, the PCC streetcars were subject to the same restrictions, along with the need to accelerate and decelerate every couple of blocks. Even the cities with dedicated right of ways had level crossings (cross streets with signals) at the end of every block. No time or distance to get to high speeds, then stop at the next traffic light."

In St. Louis in the 1950’s there was the “Hodamont Line” that went through private right of way without street crossings and though I was young on that private row they got up an scooted. Not knowing the exact speed and being the impressions from youth distort memories, I feel they certainly traveled higher speeds than they would on city streets. Fun rides with my Grandmother.

#26

Many years ago (late 1950s or early 1960s) took a ride on the Red Arrow Lines into Philly and back. This was on private right of way, but not too much trouble was made regarding grading. I’m not sure whether the car was a PCC, but I remember that it was fairly “modern” looking for that time. Well, it was more like riding a Wild Mouse at the amusement park than a trolley ride to me! That car got up to speed “right pronto” and held its speed until the next stop. Uphill or downhill did not seem to matter. Probably was not over 50mph, but to a kid who thought of trolleys as slow trundling vehicles it was quite an eye-opener!

Yours,
David Meashey

#27

The large responses to this posting regarding the Aristo-Craft street car may indicate potential buyers. Here’s a caution before ordering without personally seeing the car.

One feature I did not state is the size of the car. IF you have 1:29 rolling stock/locos, you may be disappointed at the size. It is 18 1/2" long x 4" tall – the exception is the additional hieight in one spot on the roof at 1/2" high x 1". It’s 4 1/2" at this point. For me? The car ended up looking like a midget compared to the other rolling stock – or compared to the track width, for that matter. The much larger car model I built from a kit, and the LGB/Bachmann/Hartland large scale offerings, are much more appealing to me.

Wendell