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I’m happy that you liked it😊😄😆

@@tressteleg1 its my city and i am really amazed of this rare footage and to see the change of the city … Is there more footage of Alexandria or Egypt will you upload?

As it is your city, I’m not surprised that you like it. It was a difficult time travelling in Egypt as there recently had been a war with another country and your citizens were very jumpy about tourists with cameras. We were taking a photograph of the beautiful railway station at Alexandria, and suddenly somebody got quite excited and I think was calling the police so we disappeared fast. Quite a few of my scenes were the result of someone in the Tramway office taking us around in his car. Unfortunately he became a bit persistent as he was asking for money all the time. This sort of situation is probably why not much movie film exists of your tramway in its interesting early days. I never returned to Egypt, so unfortunately that’s all I have. Also very few rail fans anywhere had movie cameras at that time.

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They never kept one for use on the property? I thought that Toronto may have been operating one line with them, but it is hard to remember everything I read about many systems. Anyway when Alexandria was finished with them, they were only good for spare parts at the best, assuming they had not been butchered to keep them running.

@@tressteleg1 Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) cleared out all the first-generation PCCs by 1970. Except maybe one that was in dead storage until 1975. Then scrapped. Post-war PCCs from the 40s and very early 50s kept running in regular service until 1995--and yes, from 1990 for a few years, they used them exclusively on the Harbourfront line. Two PCCs are today kept for tours and special holiday service. After the PCCs, the existing CLRVs and ALRVs took over the whole system. And they're gone now too. Bombardier LRVs are now our streetcars. Transit Toronto is a fan blog that can better tell than I can. Thanks for the vids!

Your mention of the Harbourfront line sounds very familiar, but if I ever read of their use there ending, obviously I forgot. Unfortunately most of today’s operators could not be bothered with anything that is not part of the everyday fleet. I knew that the Bombardier LRVs were gradually taking over. That took long enough! I also read of a gradual move away from trolley poles which is a pity.

@@tressteleg1 Correct. The system is mostly pantograph now. There's one line that still uses trolley poles for now. Mostly the poles are kept in locked position on the other lines while the pantos do their thing. Wonder if they'll remove them or just leave them be when the system is fully transitioned. Good to find people interested in this stuff. When I make streetcar observations to my friends and family, they just look at me strangely. Then I explain I'm a streetcar geek--I guess I don't look like one. Whatever that is. haha

To me, pantographs and their wiring are boring compared with trolley poles and wires. In Melbourne, which took years to transition, the poles were kept roped down until one tram caught fire, the blame was placed on the ropes becoming full of grime which conducted the 600v when wet, so the poles were removed but often the bases remained. One thing is for certain - if a trolley pole had a misadventure, rarely was the overhead damaged. But when a pantograph goes wrong, often there is significant damage to the overhead. One incident I saw had the overhead of a junction where one street turned off another, all about 6’ from the ground. It took teams all night to fix for the next morning. There are sure to be other geeks (we call them gunzels) in your area. It’s just a matter of finding some…

I’m reasonably certain that both the double-deckers and single deckers were powered. The trolley pole was on the single decker as there is no space on the roof of the double-decker. If you watch as these trains go past , they both have about the same amount of electrical equipment hanging from the floor. There would be almost no electrical equipment under a trailer. I have no idea about the age of the four-wheel Works vehicles except they look like they would date from the opening of the line many years earlier.

Well I did say in the video that the PCCs came from Toronto so that is why they tend to look like USA models 😄

@@tressteleg1 thanks for the clarification.

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It was probably leaning over because of broken springs somewhere in the bogies. If it would run at all, that had to be good enough in those days.

I remember having trouble working out which way around a few of the slides should be seen. Unfortunately I have no more photos of Alexandria trams.

@@tressteleg1 I am more interested in Cairo, especially PCC and K5AR. Alexandria is on standard gauge and still in operation. Cairo trams are abandoned as of 2022.

At that time Egypt had been recently in a war with Israel or somebody and local people were very suspicious of foreigners with cameras, so that is why I only included one or two Cairo photos - that is all I felt safe to record. There is a long story about how I got so much from Alexandria, but I won’t go into that now.

@@tressteleg1 Yes, I get that. Thanks. The clips you shared with us are very valuable to streetcar enthusiasts.

Thanks. There appears to be no other videos from that far back on KZfaq.

Well I don’t recall back then but recent videos show the trams having trolley wheels in what looks to be a swivelling head, so that would have been the mode in use in 1975. My experience with silent trams using noisy trolley wheels was in Pittsburgh 1976.

Yes, much like I remember from 1975. Sometimes we have to travel to a totally different country to see ‘how the other half lives’ and this can be a shock sometimes! Recent videos show new double deckers on the Ramleh line, and more noticeable is almost complete lack of passengers on most trams.

Well the PCCs disappeared some years ago but the ex Copenhagen Duwags soldier on with minimal TLC almost 50 years later…