Baltimore’s Peter Witt cars. In 1930, Baltimore’s United Railway and Electric Co. was ready to modernize its fleet of streetcars. Railway officials settled on a design and had 150 cars built by J.G. Brill and the Cleveland Car. Co.
The cars were referred to as “Peter Witts,” which paid homage to a Cleveland electric railway commissioner who developed the front-entrance, center-exit design for streetcars. Although streetcars from many cities followed the same arrangement and some were close in dimensions to the Baltimore cars, none were exact duplicates.
The cars ran until the 1950s when they were retired and scrapped. Baltimore Traction Co. no. 6119 survives to this day in operating condition at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.
The prototype for the Bachmann model is no. 6119. The length, width, and height of the model match those of the prototype found in an online roster of surviving streetcar equipment. This roster is part of the Shore Line Trolley Museum’s Web site (www.bera.org).
Details and decoration. Our review sample came decorated as Baltimore Transit Co. no. 6119. The paint coverage is smooth and all the lettering is crisp and straight. Watch your step is printed on the front of the car, while Entrance is printed above the front door.
The paint scheme and placement of car numbers and lettering match photos of no. 6119 while the streetcar was still in service.
The Bachmann streetcar also includes a set of stickers depicting destination and number boards for each of the road names offered.
The model’s body is made of plastic and has sharply molded rivet seams. Window screens and rooftop vents are separately applied. Window and door arrangements match prototype photos.
The metal trolley pole is sprung and has a rotating metal trolley wheel at the end. This wheel is large and out of scale. There is a switch on the bottom of the frame that allows the model to pick up power from an overhead wire.
DCC-equipped. To access the model’s printed-circuit (PC) board, I removed the press-fit roof. The DCC decoder is plugged into an eight-pin socket on the PC board.
I changed the model’s address from 3 to 6119 without difficulty. The instructions didn’t include information about programming other configuration variables.
Since the model’s decoder is dual-mode you don’t have to remove it if you want to run the streetcar on a DC layout. However, the model does come with an eight-pin jumper plug for users who want to make their streetcar DC-only.
The decoder supports 28 speed steps and has two functions: headlight on/off (Function 10) and dimming the headlight (Function 1). The LED headlights are directional in both DC and DCC.
The mechanism. I removed four screws on the bottom of the streetcar, then lifted off the body shell. The model’s chassis is die-cast metal and has cast-in passenger seats that are painted brown.
The can motor is mounted under the die-cast metal frame in the center of the car. The motor has drive shafts at each end that transfer power to plastic gearboxes inside each truck. A plastic cover conceals the bottom of the motor.
A set of wires connects the PC board to the motor and the LED headlights in the frame. The wires are concealed by a chamber in front of the center door.
If you plan to install a sound system, the frame has a round, molded indentation for a speaker, including a speaker grill, under the front end. The indentation is 3/4″ wide and 1/8″ deep.
Performance. On DC the streetcar started moving and its headlight came on at 3.5V drawing 20mA. The model crawled steadily at 1 scale mph and accelerated to a top speed of 59 scale mph at 12V drawing 100mA. Slipping, the model drew 100mA, and stalled, it drew 180mA.
On DCC, the model started moving at speed step 4 at .5 scale mph and reached a top speed of 50 scale mph at speed step 28.
Our test sample had a faulty DCC decoder. In speed steps 6 through 8 the streetcar lurched noticeably. The lurching stopped at speed steps 9 and above.
I exchanged the decoder with one from another sample and the model ran smoothly. Both samples had a lot of motor noise when running in either DC or DCC.
Like a prototype streetcar, the Bachmann model can negotiate extremely tight curves. Although the manufacturer lists the minimum radius as 9″, I was able to run the model through an 8″ radius curve.
Factory equipped with DCC, this Bachmann HO streetcar is a great choice for electric railway operations.
Price: $135.00
Manufacturer
Bachmann Industries Inc.
1400 E. Erie St.
Philadelphia, PA 19124
www.bachmanntrains.com
Description: Ready-to-run
HO plastic and metal streetcar
Road names: Baltimore Transit Co., Brooklyn & Queens Transit, Chicago Surface Lines, Los Angeles Ry., St. Louis Rys., undecorated
All-wheel drive and electrical pickup
Constant directional headlights
Detailed interior
Die-cat metal frame
Dual-mode Digital Command Control Decoder
Minimum radius: 9″
Precision can motor with dual brass flywheels
RP=25 contour HO scale 26″ metal whells in gauge
Weight: 5.5 ounces
