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In 1910, Washington's Capital Traction Company purchased 150 deck roof cars from the Jewett Car Company of Neward, Ohio, that would constitute the backbone of the system for many years. Seashore's No. 197 saw regular service on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capital and the White House from 1910 to 1937. It had been decreed that overhead wires should not mar the beauty of the National Capital, so Washington had installed an underground plow collection system in which a collector reaches down a slot that resembles that for a cable car, to contact wires on opposite sides of the vault. Such systems did not ordinarily use the running rails for a return circuit, so cars like No. 197 had special controllers that did not depend upon ground return. This conduit system was also used in New York's Manhattan borough, London and Paris, as well as in several French provincial cities.
On several lines extending into the suburbs where overhead wires were not outlawed, the underground conduit system ended and regular trolley wire began. At these points there was a covered pit in the street with signs warning motorists to drive around the track area. Here, below the street, was stationed a "pitman" who removed the attached plows from beneath passing streetcars. Meanwhile, above, a "trolleyman" raised or lowered trolley poles. The whole process took about one minute. There were also plow pits at the end of lines that did not change to overhead trolley, since a single trip frequently sufficed to batter plow insulation to a level of hazard. The plow arms had a central core of flat steel for mechanical strength; laminated to the core, and necessarily insulated, were flat copper conductors on either side, covered by yet another layer of outer insulation. All this had to fit between and be dragged along the steel slotway, with inevitable sharp edges. At the lower end of the plow were two sping mounted collector shoes that rode along the conductor rails on either side of the vault. These were also subject to constant abrasion and periodic hammering at curves, junctions, and joints. At the beginning of every shift, a plowman would drive to his pit with a pickup truck loaded with fresh plows, returning to the shop with a like pile of battered ones. Three full time shop employees were exclusively engaged with the rebuilding of plows.
While some cars had trolley poles for suburban service, many did not. There is no information as to whether No. 197 was pole-equipped, but it obviously will have to be at the Museum. Car 197 was sold to become past of a seaside summer camp on Maryland's Point Lookout in 1938, and the seats and controllers were buried in a nearby shoreline landfill. Car 197 was donated to Seashore in 1989 when owner Craig Singleton decided to replace the streetcar which had long served as a beachfront cottage, with a new house.
History from Historic Cars: The National Collection at the Seashore Trolley Museum by Ben Minnich
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