Long City Lines: Roster

Interurban and streetcar systems across North America possessed equipment that met the myriad needs of their operations. The equipment on a given system usually included passenger cars, freight equipment, and service equipment. The systems with a greater service area and resources often had many classes of equipment within each of the passenger, freight, and service categories. Smaller systems often had to make do with a small amount of equipment they had, so equipment would serve in any of the needed roles on a day-to-day basis. 

My own HO scale equipment covers the passenger, freight, and service categories for Long City Lines, as well as models of different types of cars from many historical interurban and streetcar systems (sticking to theme is difficult). The envisioned size of the Long City Lines system exceeds my abilities to acquire equipment to cover the whole system, which is also why any future layout will mostly focus on portions of the overall operation, leaving most of the system forever on paper. Nevertheless, I want to model a good variety of the different kinds of equipment I envision for the system. The roster will grow over time.

My current roster is listed below, with Long City Lines equipment first, and the equipment of historical systems listed second. Following both rosters is the imagined numbering system and description of equipment for Long City Lines.

Long City Lines

Models of Historical Equipment

Envisioned Long City Lines Roster

Although there is little chance I will ever be able (or need) to acquire what I imagine is the full roster for Long City Lines, I still like to imagine. After all, I am imagining an entire metropolitan area where none currently exists, so why not commit to the bit? It's kind of like imagining an entire world or universe as part of a novel, play, or movie, just without the novel...or play...or movie...

As such, the following is the current classification system for the Long City Lines equipment roster as it stands during the time period modeled (1945):

Numbering System

All cars have a 4 digit number, with freight and service equipment in the 1000 series, city cars in the 2000 series, interurban cars in the 3000 series, and buses in the 4000 series, with each thousand series referred to as a class. Equipment is further broken down by type within each class, and each type is associated with its own hundred series within the class. For example, steeple cab locomotives occupy the 1000 (“ten hundred”) numbers, box motors occupy 1100 (“eleven hundred”) numbers, box trailers occupy the 1200-series, and non-revenue service equipment occupies the 1300-series, depending on type.

Freight and Service Equipment

1000-series: Freight Locomotives

• 1001: General Electric 40-ton Steeple Cab

1100-series: Box Motors

1200-series: Box Trailers

1300-series: Service Equipment

• 1300s - Line Cars

• 1310s - Snowplows

• 1320s - Crane Cars

• 1330s - Side Dump Cars

  • 1330: Differential Dump Car

• 1340s - Motorized Flatcars

City Streetcars

The Long City Lines streetcar roster consists of 75 streetcars. There are 15 single-truck American Car Company Birney Safety Cars (numbers 2000 to 2014) and 60 double-truck cars. The double-truck streetcars consist of 20 Brill Peter Witt streetcars (numbers 2100 to 2119) and 40 American Car Company double-truck Birney streetcars (numbers 2120 to 2159). All single-truck streetcars are double-ended and all double-truck streetcars are single-ended. The double-truck Birney cars were originally double-ended, but were converted to single-ended with the front trolley pole retained to facilitate backing movements.

2000-series: Single-Truck City Cars

• 2013: American Car Company, Birney Safety Car

2100-series: Double-Truck City Cars

• 2107: Brill, Peter Witt streetcar

• 2137: American Car Company, Double-Truck Birney streetcar

Interurban Cars

The interurban car roster drastically changed during the 1930s. Most of the older (and mostly original) interurban cars were replaced with secondhand lightweight cars as different systems across the U.S. were abandoned and the cash became available to make purchases. By the end of the 1930s, Long City Lines possessed multiple Cincinnati Car Company Curved-Side cars and St. Louis Car Company Arch Window lightweights. The immediate buildup to the war also saw the addition of many pieces of equipment from the recently abandoned Indiana Railroad, with multiple "High-Speeds" and an RPO-Coach joining the Long City Lines roster.

3000-series: Heavyweight Interurban Cars

3100-series: Lightweight Interurban Cars

• 3100: Cincinnati Car Company, Curved-Side interurban

• 3104: St. Louis Car Company, Arch Window Lightweight interurban

• 3107: American Car & Foundry, Indiana Railroad "High-Speed" interurban

Motor Coaches (Transit & Intercity Buses)

Long City Lines began operating buses with the conversion of the Hilary line from streetcar to bus. More buses joined the fleet upon the creation of the Pauline crosstown line, and even more buses were loaned when the Defense line was created. With the end of the war in sight, Long City Lines also wants to expand into the intercity bus trade, but uses its new intercity buses (Aerocoaches) on the Defense line for the time being. 

4000-series: ACF H-17-S Bus

4100-series: Ford Transit Bus

4200-series: General American Aerocoach