united traction co. #301 prototype car

8/3/2019 United Traction Co. #301 Prototype Car

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8THE CALL BOARD NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. July 19921 1THEALBANY CAR:UNITED TRACTION COMPANYNO. 301

By Tim Truscott, Dick cars were over 20 years old. Aside fromWettereau and Ken Haselton . being unattractive and uncomfortable, theseThe once-booming urban streetcar busi- cars were expensive to operate, noisy andness was in trouble by 1929, as Americans - not designed to attract riders or to earn ahad become infatuated during the '20s with profit. Virtually all of the streetcars built inthe private automobile and the freedom and 1929 employed a technology which hadcomfort it could provide them. Automobile reached its peak in 1908, only about 20drivers complained that slow-moving anti- years after Frank Sprague introduced thequated streetcars impeded traffic flow, and first urban electric street railway line inat the same time street railways blamed the Richmond, Virginia in 1887. The street carautomobile for traffic congestion. Street- was its own worst enemy.cars were utilitarian vehicles which moved As the automobile experienced its rapidcitizens through their cities. But the public rise in importance during the 1920s, vari-demanded more: they wanted the speed and ous attempts were made to stem the exoduscomfort they got from their automobile. of passengers from streetcar lines to private

By 1929, half of the nation's approxi- automobiles and, therefore, to protect themately 74,000 electric railway passenger investments of the street railway compa-

The 301 was heading east on Madison Ave., along Washington Parkat Knox St., on March 27, 1943 when this photo was taken. Thisaluminum-bodied car had a number of advanced features never seenin Albany before. (Fred B. Abele Collection)

nies. Development of lightweight trucks,lightweight car bodies, noise reduction andother improvements were all areas of inter-est to the industry. By the late 1920s, theemphasis was on marketing the streetcar asa modern vehicle with the comfort andattractiveness of the passenger automobile.Experimental lightweight streetcars werealready scattered around the country by thetime of the Electric Street Railway Asso-ciation convention in 1929. Experimentallightweight cars built by various manufac-turers for Lynchburg (Virginia), Chicago,Scranton, Pittsburgh and Detroit, along withthe United Traction Company's experimen-tal No. 301, were displayed at the AtlanticCity convention. It was at this 1929 ESRAmeeting that street railway executives, atthe urging of Electric Railway JournalEditor Charles Gordon, agreed that a stan-dardized modern street railway car neededto be developed. The Electric Railway Presi-dents' Conference Committee (ERPCC)was therefore formed in 1929, resulting inthe PCC car (PCC stood for "Presidents'Conference Committee").

The United Traction Company had notpurchased any new cars since the single-truck heavyweight cars were built by Wasonand Laconia in 1915 and 1916. The 301was the prototype of a new design of carwhich, it was hoped, would he more cost-effective to operate and at the same timewould be attractive and comfortable enoughto keep people riding on streetcars. It wasalso hoped by the manufacturers that thecar would be ordered in large numbers.Because the car was designed to meetthe needs of the United Traction Companyin Albany, it was referred to in tractiontrade publications as "The Albany Car."According to some reports, the United Trac-tion Company was considering acquisitionof a total of 80 of these cars. However, anew administration at the United Traction


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July 1992 NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. THE CALL BOARD 9Company, presumably combined with theonset of the Great Depression, is said tohave kept the project from progressing.Probably just as important in keeping theUTC's project from moving forward wasthe decision to develop the President 's Con-ference Committee (PeC) car. No addi-tional cars were ordered, therefore making the301 the last new car acquired by the UTC.

Development of this new design, whichfeatured a body fabricated from Alcoa alu-minum and a new type of motors and con-troller, was initiated by the United TractionCompany. The Car was designed and con-structed jointly by the Cincinnati Car Co.and the General Electric Co. The manufac-turers touted the car as having many differ-ences from conventional designs, and pro-moted it as being a lightweight car. Inter-estingly, Knoxville, Tennessee and SaltLake City, Utah had electric buses built onthe same body as the 301. During WorldWar II it was sometimes out of service forextended periods because parts were notavailable, since it was a one-of-a-kind car.

According to the late Fred B. Abele, the301 was assigned to the #6 Second Ave.line from 1929 until 1934, and served onthe #3 Beltline from 1934 until 1941. Be-tween 1941 and the end of streetcar servicein Albany in 1946 the 301 served on all ofthe remaining lines (i.e. #3 Beltline, #4Pine Hills, #5 Delaware Ave., #6 SecondAve. and #2 West Albany).

It is interesting to note that the "#3Beltline" was hand lettered at the end of the301's rollsign, probably early on; either the"'#3 Beltline" was mistakenly omitted bythe sign maker or the Traction Company'splans for the 301 had changed after the signwas printed. The "#6 Second Ave." on therollsign was reported to be very yellowed,indicating that this part of the sign had beenexposed a great deal (i.e. the car had servedon that route for five years between 1929and 1934). It is known that the 301's rollsignalso showed the #10 Cohoes and #4 Troyroutes, but the car is not known to have everrun on any of these lines.

The 301 was the most popular car for fantrips during the later years of UTC opera-tions, probably because of its uniquenessand modern features. It is reported to haveridden very smoothly and quietly. At thesame time, the aluminum roof and framestructure evidently resulted in a certainrumble as the trolley pole passed over trol-ley wire fittings, a sound not found on anyof the UTC heavyweight cars. On the "fare-well" UnitedTraction Co. fan trip in July of1946, the 301 ran with two other cars.

The 301 measured 42 ft. 8 1/2 in. in

length overall, and was 8 ft. 2 112in. wide.Its height was 9 ft. 11 9/16 in. from the railto the top of the trolley boards. The 301weighed in at 32,450 lbs. The car bodyitself weighed 14,980 lbs and the truckseach weighed 7,730 lbs, The balance of theweight was taken up by airbrake equip-ment, electrical equipment, magnetic brakesand so forth.

Passenger convenience and comfortwere prime features of the new design. Theheight from the rail to the first step on theend doors was only 17 inches, while theheight from the rail to the first step of thecenter exit doors was only 15 inches. Be-cause of this passenger convenience, how-

the roof. The wainscoting below the win-dows consisted of aluminum plate.Seating was of the "walkover" type up-holstered in brown Spanish leather and

manufactured by Hale & Kilburn. Eachdouble seat was 35 inches wide with tendouble seats on each side of the aisle, whilethe aisle between the seats was 22 incheswide. One longitudinal 30-inch seat waslocated to the right of each end door. Themotorman's seat was a swivel bucket typewhich was adjustable both vertically andlongitudinally.Provision was made for both tempera-ture and noise insulation. The carbody wasinsulated with 1/2 in. cork glued to the

The 301 is shown in front of the United Traction Co. Quail St. officeon August 22, 1942 in this photo by lamar Keller. This 44-passengercar, powered by four 35-horsepower General Electric motors, hadunusually good acceleration. Note the trolley pole near the left edgeof the photo. (Fred B. Abele Collection)ever, the car was restricted somewhat in theroutes it could operate on. The low side exitdoors would not clear the curb going fromSouth Pearl St. onto Hudson Ave., wherethe track was closer to the curb than onother routes, so the 301 could not run on the"Inner Belt" line.For passenger comfort in Albany win-ters, there were 20 enclosed thermostati-cally-controlled 500-watt electric heatersmanufactured by the Consolidated CarHeater Co. The car also had 20 dome-typeelectric lamp fixtures for illumination ofthe interior of the car.

Careful attention was given to the ap-pearance of the interior of the car. Theheadlining on the interior of the car was 18gauge aluminum curved to the contour of

inside and outside panels; this material alsoacted as a noise insulation. Ground corkand cement was used to fill the body bol-sters for the elimination of vibration andnoise. Additional noise-deadening featuresincluded non-resonant gears, as well asnoise deadeners on the wheels.The carbody was mounted on passen-ger-type arch bar trucks manufactured byCincinnati Car Co., with special springpedestal cantilever-type journal boxes andcombination rubber cushions and semi-eliptical spring bolster suspension. Thetrucks, which had a wheelbase of 5 ft. 4 in.,were designed to operate on curves with aminimum radius of 30 ft. Incidentally, thesetrucks may have been the first used by theUTC which had not been manufactured


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10 THE CALL BOARD NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. July 1992the 301 had a more favorable weight-to-horsepower ratio than did the earlier double-truck models.

While the 800s were 45 ft. 1 in. inoverall length, the 301 was 42 ft. 8 I12 in.long. The width of the 301 was 8 ft. 2 112in., while the 800s were 8 ft. 6 in. wide. The800s were 11 ft. 5 in. high (above the rail),while the 301 was 9 ft. 11 9/16 in. high.In summary, the 301 was slightly shorter,narrower and lower than the other 44-pas-senger double-truck cars in use (the 800-series), but had a more favorable weight-to-power ratio than the earlier cars. Also,the new-type controller and motors pro-vided for improved acceleration, while theservice and magnetic brakes permitted su-perior stopping capabilities.

The United Traction Company's No.301 was a car in the forefront of moderntraction development. as the industry trieddesperately to save itself from the privateautomobile. This one-of-a-kind car was afavorite of Capital District traction fansand will long be remembered.

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~!II r-t{~:':~~~!=~.: . : : : . : : ~ - = : :~ : . : : : : : ~ . : : : : : : = : : : = : ' : :: : : : : ~ ~ " ~ : " ~ ~ :~!!;;:::.:=.=::-~.=----------..L.~-56"-~J'Diagram of the UTC 301 shows that it was designed to permit easyentrance and exit, as indicated by the wide aisles and the location ofthe enddoors and exit doors at the center of the car. The shape of thecar, with the ends narrower than the rest of the car, is reminiscent oftoday's LRV's. (Collection of the authors)

15-20 percent. The car's acceleration was3.5 m.p.h.p.s (miles per hour per second).Stops with the service brake resulted in adeceleration of2.5 m.p.h.p.s., and a decel-eration of 6 m.p.h.p.s. when emergencybraking (combining both air and magneticbraking) was used.

A comparison of the 301 with some ofthe lJTC 's other 44-passenger double-truckcars in service along with the 301 between1929 and the end of service in 1946 isinteresting. The 16 cars in the 820-842(even no.) series of double-truck cars builtby Cincinnati Car Co. in 1913 for the Cweighed 41,000 lbs., nearly 8,000 Ibs, morethan the 301. Thi steel-body series hadfour 40 hp traction motors. while the 30Jhad four 35 hp motors, yielding 2S6 Ibs, perhorsepower for the . andper horsepower for the 30 1. In otlrer w

locally by the Taylor Truck Co.A smaller-than-usual 26 in. wheel diam-eter, permitted by lower-profile motors,made it possible to provide wide and con-venient entry and exit doors with low steps.Axles were fitted with 3 in. X 6 in. Hyattroller bearings.

Power was provided by four 35 hp Gen-eral Electric Type 265 electric motors whichwere geared for a free running speed of 32mph at 550 volts. A General Electric TypePCM controller was designed for foot op-eration. The controller was operated bythe right foot, with the operator selectingpractically any speed by depressing thepedal through the various resistancenotches. Since the brake was controlledwith the left foot, both hands were free forthe operator to make change, punch trans-fers and perform other tasks. The foot-operated controller was claimed to have allthe flexibility of the hand-operated Type Kcontroller.The 301 was equipped with both air andsupplementary magnetic track brakes. Theair brake, manufactured by General Elec-tric, was of the straight air type with anemergency feature. The magnetic brakesconsisted of four electromagnets mountedbetween the wheels of each truck. Theywere energized directly from the trolleyand controlled by intermediate pneumaticvalves. In an emergency, both the air brakesand the magnetic brakes functioned to-gether.A red stop light was located on theoutside of each end of the car along with redlamps over each exit door. These lightswarned automobile drivers, as well as pas-sengers, that a stop was about to be made.

One of the service features promoted bythe manufacturers was the car's fast accel-eration and deceleration which, the manu-facturers claimed had been shown in tests,could result in a decrease in running time of

References:Electric Railway Journal, Feb. 1930, pgs.78-81, "New Albany Car Includes ManyInnovations," by R.S. Beers.Electric Traction, Nov. 1929, pgs. 591-592, "The Albany Car."PCC: The Car That Fought Back, byStephen P. Carlson and Fred W. SchneiderIlL Interurban Press, 1980.

CO. 301Trucks Cincinnati arch barManufacturer Cincinnati Car Co.Wheelbase 5 ft. 4 in.Wheel Diam 26 in.Weight 7,730 Ibs.

umber of ._ .._ 1'0 __.__..................__ __301

Manufactnrer Cincinnati Car Co.Type Pay As You EnterDate mfg 1929Seating cap 44 Motors ..__ .4 ea. G.E. 265Horsepower __ 35 ea.

Voltage 600Weight N.A.Body AluminumCar weight 32,450 lbs.Car body weight 14,980 lbs. _General Electric ModelOverall length 42 ft. 8 112 in.Body length 32 ft. 127/8 in.Ht. over rail 9 ft. 11 9/16 .Width (exterior) 8 ft._

Dt::s :i::zI iion signs Hunter, end & side._ Air & magneticVestibules _

Ends ~ - " - ' '' ' - '' - 'u ; .. . ; : :

united traction co. #301 prototype car

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