Center Entrance in Boston - Part 2

By Alfred Barten

I wrote this article for Electric Lines magazine, which published it in their May-June 1992 issue. I’ve omitted a few of their minor edits, reverting to my original manuscript (mostly because the edits didn’t change anything significant, and trying to search them all out seemed unnecessary), added some illustrations and omitted several others because they are no longer available.

This is the second of four parts. - AB
Part 1 - Introduction
Part 3 - Boston Center Entrance Cars
Part 4 - Boston Center Entrance Car Characteristics

Historical Development

Center-entrance designs for single cars were experimented with from the early 1890s, but it was the Pittsburgh Railways' relatively low-floor center-entrance trailer of 1910 that seems to have touched off the revolution. The full story begins with the Pay-As-You-Enter (PAYE) phenomenon that got its start in Montreal in 1905.

PAYE Car. Before 1905, the time-honored method of fare collection was for the conductor to collect from passengers already boarded and seated. In a relaxed environment, such as on interurban routes with infrequent stops, this worked well. In an urban environment, particularly at rush hour, it did not. The conductor had to remember who in the crowded car had paid and who hadn't. The opportunity for missing a fare, or even pocketing one, was great. This latter temptation was of particular concern to trolley companies, since they typically underpaid their conductors.

The ideal, of course, was to have the fare paid before the passenger entered the car and "mingled deceptively" (a practiced art) with the other riders. The PAYE system placed the conductor and the farebox on the rear, sometimes open, platform so that passengers could board the car but would have to pay before entering. Once introduced in Montreal, the patented PAYE system proved an immediate success as receipts increased dramatically from the same number of riders without incurring additional expense to the company. A 1911 Electric Railway Journal editorial referred to the prepayment idea as "the most important improvement which has been introduced in car design since the adoption of electricity for street railway service."



The drawback was that car platforms had to be increased in size to accommodate the large numbers of people who boarded but were unable to enter the car until they had paid. Within a few years, city car platforms increased from an almost standard 4'-8 1/2" to 7'-0", 8'-0", even 9'-4" (in a 1907 Montreal car) to withstand the confusion of passengers exiting past those waiting to pay and enter the car.

As the PAYE system was forcing changes in car design, it also became apparent that cars needed greater carrying capacity in relation to their crew (to keep profits up) and needed to spend less time at stops while passengers boarded or exited (to keep riders satisfied). Mounting lawsuits from passengers injured in boarding/exiting accidents fueled the flames of change.

Pittsburgh Low-Floor Car. In Pittsburgh it had been common practice to operate two-car trains during rush hour to handle the large crowds that seemed to prefer particular boarding points along the city routes. Before introducing its center-entrance trailer in 1910, the Pittsburgh Railways had for seven or eight years used older single-truck cars as trailers. Riders generally eschewed the poor-riding, uncomfortable cars, choosing instead to crush into the larger, newer lead motor cars. But the new center-entrance trailers, with a lower than normal floor height, just 30" above the rail, and a low first step, only 13" above the rail, proved popular, particularly with the women riders who preferred the easier entry. The low floor and step were made possible by use of the unusually small 22-inch diameter running wheels. A second interior step, parallel to the first, reached the large interior area in the center of the car where the conductor stood alongside the farebox. The area was an implied interior prepayment platform. To draw already paid passengers away from this critical point, the company installed intermediate, or aisle, seats near the outer ends of the car.

The doorway at the trailer's lower-than-normal first step would have interrupted a conventional car's supporting side sill. In place of this load-carrying member, the car's designer, General Superintendent P.N. Jones, used the entire steel-plated side wall of the car below the window sills as a girder. He added steel plate stiffening around the door opening to maintain the structural integrity of the wall/plate girder.


Pittsburgh Low-Floor car and trailer. Electric Railway Journal.


Pittsburgh low-floor truck, left; Standard Motor Truck Company truck, right. Electric Railway Journal.

Encouraged by the success of its trailers, the company soon set about designing motor cars along the same lines. In speaking of the low-floor trailer at a 1911 American Electric Association convention, one Pittsburgh Railways official noted that because of the low floor level, the trailer "is the quickest loading car we have ever had. Almost without exception the trailer conductor has given his signal to the high platform motor-car conductor before the latter has his passengers on or off."

The official went on to say that the road was working on a motorized version of the trailer. It was introduced in 1912 and was described in detail by the Electric Railway Journal in the August 3, 1912, issue. The new motor car was an experimental conversion of one of the fifty trailers built earlier and featured new small motors specifically designed to enable the car to run on 24-inch diameter wheels - a significant accomplishment at the time.

The Pittsburgh design continued to evolve, culminating in the 1915 standard version of which nearly a thousand were built. In this final version, a front door was added to accommodate short distance riders which the company felt were better served by this location at rush hour times.







Pittsburgh Railways center-entrance car with end doors. Electric railway Journal.