Birney Project ~ Wiring for Trolley Pole Reverse

Fortunately, the Birney cleaned up nicely from the April fools day disaster ;-P. So now we can continue with the wiring. I'm going to use a nifty technique known as "Trolley Pole Reverse":

Trolley Pole Reverse wiring is used with live overhead. The direction of the trolley is reversed by simply switching poles, no need to switch polarity in the track! The way it works is; one pole is wired to one of the motor leads, and the other pole is wired to the other motor lead. When one pole is up in contact with the positive overhead, the motor lead it is wired to becomes energized with the positive electrisicles. The other pole is down making a connection with the holddown hook on the roof. That hook is part of the metal car body that is energized with the negative electrisicles from the wheels in contact with the negative rail. So that pole is energizing the motor lead its wired to with the negative electrisicles, making a circuit! Then, switch the position of the poles so the first is down and the other pole is up, the polarity of the motor leads are reversed and the trolley runs in the opposite direction! Cool huh?

Utah Pacific #CLU-96 Constant Lighting Kit wired in series with the motor provides 1.5 volts for reversing headlights and taillights as well as constant lighting for the destination board and route number signs. I had to omit the interior lighting, the unit is at capacity with the 7 bulbs its already lighting. Maybe someday I'll be able to figure out how to light the interior but, if I was to do it all again, I would go with LEDs. They last much longer, I'm not looking forward to fishing out a burnt out bulb out of the spaghetti of wiring shown above. The bulbs are glued in place with Elmers White Glue. Elmers is also used to glue the wires to the ceiling so that the dont hang down in the windows. Elmers hold really well but is also easy enough to remove.

2 Pin Micro Mini Connector from Miniatronics (Code: 50-001-02) allows the motor/truck assembly to be detached from the body for maintenance. One pin is wired to one trolley pole and the other pin wired to the other pole/constant lighting module. The negative charge from the rails transfer through the mounting screws to the trolley body and hold down hooks.

Add some power and "bling"... yessir! "Bling"!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Final Brasswork

It’s about time to get this Birney painted! So I am trying to think of any last minute brass work that needs to be finished beforehand.

In a previous post I said I was going to let the bulb lighting the destination sign also light the interior. But I have since rethought that. The idea of a bulb just dangling there doesn’t sit well with me. So I fabricated a housing for the bulb lighting the destination sign. I simply used square tube stock and filed away the front. At the same time I gave it a curve so that it conforms to the curve of the front of the car. Then I drilled a hole for a round tube to slip into. The bulb slides through the tube and into the housing.

The two tubes on the left house the marker lamp bulbs. Next to them is the new housing for the destination sign bulb. And to the right of that, coming down from the ceiling, is the tube that will house the bulb for the route number sign on the roof of the car. That's a lot of bulbs, I hope this works. Yessir! I really hope this works!

The route number sign boxes on the roof of the cars are rather prominent, so I’m going to give modeling them a shot.


I started by carefully determining and marking the location of the sign. Then I drilled out a pilot hole through the roof and the ceiling.


The pilot hole is widened to accommodate the 3/16” tube, which is soldered into place.


Taking a square file, I filed through the front and the side of the tube. The bulb will reside in the tube, shining through these openings.

A Plastruct square acrylic tube is cut to length and a test fit shows that it fits perfectly over the brass tube. This photo shows the bulb mounting tubes from outside the car: the Route sign on the roof, the new destination sign housing, and the marker lamp housings.

An anonymous tipster (using the comments feature at the bottom of each of these blog posts) pointed out that Birney’s don’t have rivets on the front ends. So I filed those off. I tried to remove the retriever so that I could move it to the other side of the headlight, but it won’t budge. I’ll live with it. I also added security bars in the windows. These I soldered in, but next time I might just glue them in place. They had quite a reaction to the heat, warping them. I think the car is looking mighty pretty, so it’s off the paint shop for a fresh coat of SDERy “Mission Yellow”. But that’s a whole ‘nother story, Yessir! A whole ‘nuther story!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Marker Lamp Holders

Noticing that the headlight for this Birney has a tube to mount the headlight bulb in, I thought I would use a similar method for mounting the marker lights.

I simply cut a ¼” lengths of brass tube stock and soldered them in place. The bulbs fit perfectly in the tubes but stop at the cutout. I’ll have to fashion some sort of clear lens.

A similar technique was planned for the destination sign but using square tube stock, but now I’m leaning towards just mounting the bulb just behind the sign so that it not only lights the sign but also the interior of the car. That way it will cut down on the number of bulbs on this trolley. As it looks now, what with 2 headlights, 4 marker lights, 2 destination signs, 2 route sign bulbs (on the roof), and maybe 1 more interior light in the center of the car, that’s 11 bulbs for this little guy! That’s a lot of lights. Yessir! A lot of lights!

Birney Project ~ Drilling out the Marker Lamps

Prominent! That’s what I find those marker lamps over the center window to be. So I decided to drill them out so I can light them.

Standard practice was, as I understand it, that there are colored “gels” that fit in between the lens and the lamp thus changing the color of the light seen. When the lamps are in the rear end of the car, they display red. But what they display when on the forward end was up to each individual traction (trolley) company.

Steam railroads had standard practices that were recognized around the country when it came to marker lamps, and some traction companies elected to follow these, such as:

White = Extra or Special car, not scheduled on timetable.

Green = Another car following on same schedule.

Etc… You get the idea.

Or traction companies could elect to display white to compliment the headlight, or just run them dark.

Color? I don’t know what San Diego Electric Railways practices would have been when it came to the color of these lamps. So I’m going to have to make an educated guess. Of course if YOU know what color they were, please leave a comment at the bottom of this post. I would be most grateful.

What color I’m going to display I don’t know yet until I actually get to the lighting part of the project. But I decided that adding the marker lights would be worth the effort and will add to the entertainment value of the car. Yessir! Add to its entertainment value!

Dandy