Pacer - American style!

[russ p]

19 minutes ago, pH said:

 

Here's one of it at Abbotsford:

http://www.railforthevalley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/RftV-001.jpg

 

I did the trip on it from New Westminster to Abbotsford on what was then the BC Hydro railway (now Southern Railway of BC). I have a couple of pictures taken that day, but that was before the days of digital cameras, and they're buried in a box somewhere. One big concern was the speed and quietness of the units, combined with many ungated crossings, on a line where pedestrians and car drivers were used to seeing slow, noisy diesel-hauled drag freights. The BCH crews were very relieved to get through the summer of 1986 without a crossing accident.

 

Did it get American horns and a bell?

[Oldddudders]

11 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

To keep the matter in perspective, I shouldn’t think that the D&RGW “Galloping Goose” railcars offered a particularly luxurious ride, but they have become an icon of the later days of the narrow gauge. 

I think I have a couple in On30 somewhere. I would suggest the County Donegal railcars achieved equivalent status in the enthusiast community, maybe less so among the locals. 

[rockershovel]

6 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I think I have a couple in On30 somewhere. I would suggest the County Donegal railcars achieved equivalent status in the enthusiast community, maybe less so among the locals. 

 

The locals probably didn’t mind. 

 

The problem with any device of this sort, is “why not just have a bus?” The answer is usually either the required capacity for urban services, or the lack of direct alternative routes anywhere East of the A1, or the topography of the Peak District.

[Regularity]

 

That’s one way to improve the ride...

[F-UnitMad]

12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

 

That’s one way to improve the ride...

I love the way British trains can be put on flat cars, and still be well within the US loading Gauge.

The A4 Dwight D Eisenhower was the same

[Andy Reichert]

As far as articulated US passenger systems, I have an HO Zephyr, along with a couple of Electroliners tucked away until I can find time to put them into running order. 

 

http://www.sunnygardensag.org/?page_id=153

 

Andy

[Edwin_m]

8 hours ago, Adam88 said:

There is a Talgo in the museum in Madrid and some of the Copenhagen S-tog trains are built on similar lines, each car except the end ones only had a single axle.

That was the very one I was thinking of, but didn't have a photo to hand.  When I visited last year there was a special exhibition on the history of Talgo.  

 

8 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

It was 142 049 that went to Expo 86 in Vancouver, BC

Crikey, pushing 35 years since I went to Vancouver - I visited the Expo but not the Pacer.  

Edited December 1, 2019 by Edwin_m

[dibber25]

The caption to Michael Wilkie's picture reads:

Passenger Extra RB-100 east crossing the Serpentine River at mileage 11.9 Fraser Valley subdivision on BC Hydro Rail at 9.45am June 28 1986. Michael supplied the photo to me at the time. We were corresponding mainly about the railways on Vancouver Island. I believe he passed away some years ago. (CJL)

[russ p]

12 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

The caption to Michael Wilkie's picture reads:

Passenger Extra RB-100 east crossing the Serpentine River at mileage 11.9 Fraser Valley subdivision on BC Hydro Rail at 9.45am June 28 1986. Michael supplied the photo to me at the time. We were corresponding mainly about the railways on Vancouver Island. I believe he passed away some years ago. (CJL)

 

 

I have seen that picture a long time ago but when you look at it now I'm surprised they let it run with no extra pilot or lights , horns and bell. God knows what they would have done if it failed unless they made an adaptor to couple a BSI to a north American buckeye 

[rockershovel]

57 minutes ago, russ p said:

 

 

I have seen that picture a long time ago but when you look at it now I'm surprised they let it run with no extra pilot or lights , horns and bell. God knows what they would have done if it failed unless they made an adaptor to couple a BSI to a north American buckeye 

 

Judging by the pictures and accounts of abandoned locos that appear from time to time, the usual method is to tip it off the track and leave it there...

 

[pH]

2 hours ago, russ p said:

I have seen that picture a long time ago but when you look at it now I'm surprised they let it run with no extra pilot or lights , horns and bell.

 

Not only that. The day I travelled on it was one of the hottest of that summer. They ran it with all the doors open, and an employee stationed at each door to stop passengers possibly falling out!

[pH]

6 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I love the way British trains can be put on flat cars, and still be well within the US loading Gauge.

 

Not just British trains, but North American ones. 

 

Look at the size of the engines here against the doublestacks they're hauling:

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/392056/

 

It means you have plenty of clearance for moves like this:

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/120842/

which I saw on the way from St. Thomas, Ontario to Tacoma, Washington State.

Edited December 2, 2019 by pH

[dibber25]

8 hours ago, pH said:

 

Not only that. The day I travelled on it was one of the hottest of that summer. They ran it with all the doors open, and an employee stationed at each door to stop passengers possibly falling out!

At the time it was suggested as a replacement for Budd cars on BC Rail. I believe it did a run to Squamish although I've never seen pictures. At the time the Cariboo Dayliner was the longest RDC run in the World. Can you imagine 456 miles in a Pacer?!! My understanding at the time was that the draught under the doors and the lack of air conditioning were the main deterrents to Pacers being purchased for use in Canada. In fact, I doubt anyone seriously considered the idea but it did provide something 'modern' to run at Expo, where the railway side otherwise concentrated on a run-by of historic steam. (CJL)

[Regularity]

24 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

Can you imagine 456 miles in a Pacer?

I did 67 miles once (Preston to York) and that was enough. In fact, it was probably 65 miles more than enough.

[rockershovel]

The Pacer was and is, a bus body in the British sense; a simple “box on wheels” designed for short-haul use in a temperate climate, which stops and opens its doors every few hundred yards. It’s totally unsuited to the Canadian distances and climate in pretty much, any aspect you might care to name. 

[Regularity]

Pretty much unsuited to any use in pretty much any climate: all the disadvantages of a bus (basic, designed for short journeys) as opposed to a motor-coach, and none of the advantages (running on a road, pneumatic tyres, short distances of up to a few miles, never getting up to much speed).

It was cheap. And like many cheap things, nasty.

[rockershovel]

That’s an interesting turn of phrase; “bus” in the American and Canadian sense, tends to be more along the lines of “motor coach” in the U.K. 

 

I rather think that the defining characteristic, in the British sense, is “how much change do you get from three quid?” when assessing the journey. 

Edited December 2, 2019 by rockershovel

[Glorious NSE]

21 hours ago, rockershovel said:

.... the Pacer is actually quite good Engineering, in the sense of doing for one dollar, what anyone can do for two dollars. It meets its design specification, and has long outlived its original design life in service. 

 

It’s a horrible thing to ride in, but that was never the design specification; which is probably why it was never a success outside its home market. Any half-competent engineer with a home bus producer could produce something similar, quite quickly. 

Ride must surely have been even worse on usual North American track where the rail joints aren't necessarily in the same place on each rail!
 

16 hours ago, pH said:

 

One big concern was the speed and quietness of the units, combined with many ungated crossings, on a line where pedestrians and car drivers were used to seeing slow, noisy diesel-hauled drag freights. The BCH crews were very relieved to get through the summer of 1986 without a crossing accident.

Doesn't bear thinking about what that versus a logging truck would have looked like...

[F-UnitMad]

8 hours ago, pH said:

 

Not just British trains, but North American ones. 

 

Look at the size of the engines here against the doublestacks they're hauling:

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/392056/

 

 

...although double-stackers can't go everywhere on the US network, especially Eastern roads.

But yes they are impressive, & when I posted some photos of them on a.n.other Forum a few years ago, the gobs of some members familiar only with UK trains were well & truly smacked...

[rockershovel]

Another thing which bears mention, a propos Pacers (and rural rail services generally) is the relationship between the supposed, and actual destination.

 

Buses, in the generality, deliver the traveller to some recognisable approximation of their intended destination. 

 

However it’s a joke dating from the earliest days of rural rail services, that they mostly don’t. There is a common literary device, in which the traveller is met by an aged retainer, or other bucolic grotesque in some absurd or inappropriate vehicle (anything from an aged Rolls-Royce to a hay-wain, or perhaps it is market-day and the cart has a full complement of rustic revellers already) and thereby proceeds through the gathering dusk for an indeterminate period, three or four miles being a considerable journey by such means. Or perhaps, as in “Scoop” the hapless townsman attempts an ill-advised journey on foot, with predictable results. 

 

This is still the case; I couldn’t help but be struck, during my recent Lincolnshire interlude, with the generally abandoned appearance of such places. 

 

There is another, more modern variant, in which the journey starts or ends in some windswept, formerly grandiose station, now largely comprising dirty ballast, boarded or unlit windows, windblown litter and pigeon droppings, often under a capacious roof thick with encrusted soot. The traveller is joined by a variable company of shouty, ill-mannered teenagers, strident single mothers with overloaded pushchairs, a few servicemen travelling on warrants and the occasional pensioner. The journey terminates, eventually, at a station much like the departure point, leaving the traveller to negotiate his onward journey by villainous-looking minicab. 

[wasabi]

Con-cor do (or did) models of the Aerotrain - I think in both N and HO.  I bought the N version some time ago (second hand) but there are a lot of inflexible wires between the cars which make it unusable on any layout with curves.  I think I can see how to re-wire it with more flexible wiring but there are other priorities at the moment.

[eastwestdivide]

On 01/12/2019 at 14:26, Johann Marsbar said:

...

Whilst a bit O/T, does anyone else remember this Bristol LH at the 1984 Doncaster Works open day?

...

I've put my photo of it over on the Pacer Countdown thread:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/142370-pace-yourself-photos-of-the-final-pacer-countdown/page/23/&tab=comments#comment-3752216

 

[stewartingram]

9 hours ago, Regularity said:

 

It was cheap. And like many cheap things, nasty.

Hang on a minute, but it wasn't supplied through Aldi or Lidl.....

 

Stewart

[mdvle]

13 hours ago, rockershovel said:

That’s an interesting turn of phrase; “bus” in the American and Canadian sense, tends to be more along the lines of “motor coach” in the U.K.

 

All depends on where you live.  Many places in the US and Canada you say bus and people will think of a transit bus, and in fairness to the Pacers the interior was very much comparable to the transit buses in use at the time (think the GM new look bus) which had a poor (by today's standards) interior with a lot of rattling sounds after a few years of bounding down the curb lanes of urban streets.

[pH]

2 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

 Many places in the US and Canada you say bus and people will think of a transit bus.

 

Sometimes referred to - usually by teenagers with aspirations to car ownership - as a 'loser cruiser'.