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Pittsburgh Double Deck Cars with HO Scale Plans Philadelphia Railway Museum Assn
Pittsburgh Double Deck Cars with HO Scale Plans Philadelphia Railway Museum Assn Inc 1953 8 pages, many photos.
The plan of seating passengers on two levels had its origin in the roof or outside seats of stage coaches and horse cars. The size of a vehicle was limited by the small pulling power of horses, and the seating capacity of a single deck was very small. Speeds were so low that delays in boarding and alighting were negligible.
One of the very first double-deck cars after the introduction of electrification was the "Columbia," built in the shops of the Federal Street & Pleasant Valley Railway Company and placed in service in 1890 on Pittsburgh's North Side. This was advertised as "the largest electric car ever built." It was 36 feet long, mounted on double trucks manufactured by J. G. Brill Company of Philadelphia, with two 15 hp Sprague motors. Seating capacity was 92-52 inside and 40 on top; but loads up to 160 were reported. Pictures do not reveal the means of reaching the roof.
Although early reports were enthusiastic about the results obtained with this car, pictures published the following year show that the roof seats had been removed.
During the next decade, many innovations in car design resulted from attempts to solve the problems of increasing labor costs, patronage, and traffic congestion. One of the most significant innovations was the low-floor, center-entrance trailer introduced by Pittsburgh Railways late in 1910. Research by the company led to the development of a compact motor, and some of these cars were motorized in 1912.
This development of low-floor cars, along with the development of rapid fare-collection facilities, made the double-deck car much more practicable.
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