Author Topic: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company  (Read 14878 times)

Eric Bolton

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Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« on: February 25, 2010, 10:22:04 PM »
I have recently stumbled across a strange little narrow gauge railroad that ran in the suburbs of Boston. The Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad. I am trying to track down all the information I can on their MU coaches that were converted from Laconia built coaches. Do any of the Laconia Car Company drawings exist? If anyone here has information on the BRB&L cars please feel free to share. I purchased the book "Narrow Gauge The Story of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad" but it only has so much information and I question the accuracy of the drawing of one of the coaches in it. The wheel base listed for the MCB style truck is 6'6" and that just seems way to long.
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Pete "Cosmo" Barrington

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2010, 01:39:29 AM »
I know that some of these coaches survive on the East Broad Top to this day. Someone affiliated with that group would have the information you seek.  ;)

Eric Bolton

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2010, 02:27:33 AM »
The problem is the coaches sold to the EBT were sold off before the electrification in 1928. They were never converted to MUs and were completely different style cars.
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James Patten

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2010, 07:14:43 AM »
I believe Gary Kohler/M2FQ Publications has a new BRB&L book out recently.  Check out http://www.m2fq.com.  We're getting a shipment of books from Gary and that might be one of them.

Glenn Christensen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2010, 09:34:19 PM »
I purchased the book "Narrow Gauge The Story of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad" but it only has so much information and I question the accuracy of the drawing of one of the coaches in it. The wheel base listed for the MCB style truck is 6'6" and that just seems way to long.

Hi Eric,

You're correct, according to the drawings of an ex-BRB&L combine in Rainey and Kyper's book "East Broad Top" the truck wheelbase was 66" (5'6") rather than 6'6".

Best Regards,
Glenn

Scott Ruffinen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2013, 05:23:03 PM »
Sorry about coming in so late. I drew the BRB&L coach drawing found in "Narrow Gauge, The Story of the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad" by Robert C. Stanley. While the drawing has much to complain about (and if I could wish it away I would) the dimension given for the wheel base of the MCB truck is accurate. The information came from several pages of field notes obtained from the Locomotive Historical Society by Mr. Stanley, copies of which I still possess. One sketch has a wheel base of 6'-6". Normally I would be willing to concede that this could be a misreading of 66." God knows I encountered plenty of instances of that sort of thing while reading the notes. However, a different, fully dimensioned sketch of this truck reads, unambiguously, 78." That's 6'-6" no matter how you slice it. BTW, it wasn't on the drawing but the correct electric truck was a Brill 177-E2 also with a 6'-6" wheel base.

Bernie Perch

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2013, 09:48:31 PM »
You have to remember that the coaches purchased by the EBT were some of the oldest on the BRB&L and being an older style of truck may have had a shorter wheelbase than the newer, later coaches.

Bernie Perch

Glenn Christensen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2013, 09:58:56 AM »
That's interesting about the source material you used for your drawing Scott. 

Given the paucity of surviving BRB&L records, everything that has remains becomes even more precious.

I haven't scaled out your drawing versus the Kyper ones, but I believe Bernie is correct about the EBT cars (and probably the ET&WNC cars too) being from earlier classes of BRB&L coaches.  The amazing thing is that even these early cars have got to be among the largest narrow gauge coaches used in domestic service.  Given this fact, I had long assumed that the later BRB&L coaches had roughly the same dimensions as the earlier cars.  Based upon your information, I now believe that assumption is incorrect.  The later cars had to be bigger than the earlier cars by some margin, even though they may appear similar in size.

Does my new assumption square with your data?


Best Regards,
Glenn

Richard "Steam" Symmes

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #8 on: March 12, 2013, 10:45:58 AM »
FYI:

The Winthrop, Mass. Public Library supposedly has the largest collection of BRB&L material extant.

Richard

Scott Ruffinen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #9 on: March 12, 2013, 12:02:14 PM »
That's interesting about the source material you used for your drawing Scott. 

Given the paucity of surviving BRB&L records, everything that has remains becomes even more precious.

I haven't scaled out your drawing versus the Kyper ones, but I believe Bernie is correct about the EBT cars (and probably the ET&WNC cars too) being from earlier classes of BRB&L coaches.  The amazing thing is that even these early cars have got to be among the largest narrow gauge coaches used in domestic service.  Given this fact, I had long assumed that the later BRB&L coaches had roughly the same dimensions as the earlier cars.  Based upon your information, I now believe that assumption is incorrect.  The later cars had to be bigger than the earlier cars by some margin, even though they may appear similar in size.

Does my new assumption square with your data?


Best Regards,
Glenn

I'm a trolley guy rather than a narrow gauge fan so I'm really not in a position to compare one type of car to another especially since I am not very familiar with what exists on the East Broad Top. However, others have told me, and I take their word for it, that the BRB&L coaches that we are most familiar with are very large compared to typical narrow gauge coaches. The coaches that were electrified were a full nine feet wide and fifty-three plus feet long. There were others that lasted to the end of the steam era, similar in appearance to the East Broad Top cars, that were even bigger, nine feet wide and fifty-seven+ feet long. Evidently, pictures of these are very rare though there are glimpses of them in all of the recent BRB&L books.

Glenn Christensen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2013, 10:31:20 AM »


The coaches that were electrified were a full nine feet wide and fifty-three plus feet long. There were others that lasted to the end of the steam era, similar in appearance to the East Broad Top cars, that were even bigger, nine feet wide and fifty-seven+ feet long. Evidently, pictures of these are very rare though there are glimpses of them in all of the recent BRB&L books.
[/quote]

Hi Scott,

I did a little research last night.

The only 3' gauge cars, I could find that matched the BRB&L's 9' coach width was found on the ET&WNC's beautiful arch-window and diaphragm-equipped passenger fleet.  These car bodies were about 40' long.  I also found there was clearly no coach width standard for 3' gauge coaches, but most of the widths I found fall in the range from 7'6" to 8'4".  Average car body lengths seemed to run in the 35' to 40' range.  So from this perspective alone, it is clear the early BRB&L coaches were already larger than average.
 
The EBT's ex-BRB&L coaches were 44' 10" long (not including platforms) by 8'8" wide.  As stated previously, the wheelbase on these cars is 66".
The ET&WNC's ex-BRB&L coaches were listed variously as 45' long (no width given) and 51' long by 8'8" wide.  I believe the 51' length includes the end platforms (3' wide) and if I am correct, the 45' by 8'8" dimension is nearly spot-on for the EBT coaches.

Question - Do the 53' and 57' length dimensions you cite include the end platforms? 

If not, the later BRB&L cars were massive indeed!  This would explain why the 78" wheelbase on the later trucks is not readily apparent.


Best Regards,
Glenn

Scott Ruffinen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2013, 12:18:02 PM »
Quote
Question - Do the 53' and 57' length dimensions you cite include the end platforms? 

Yes, over the buffer for the Miller coupler.

Glenn Christensen

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Re: Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR/Laconia Car Company
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2013, 02:37:31 PM »
Thanks Scott!

That means that two of the later classes of BRB&L coaches had car body sizes of 9' X 47' and 9' X 51' respectively.  Pretty impressive.


Best Regards,
Glenn