WBB Peter Witt Owners: How Do You Like Your Streetcars?

I think this car is a nice runner. It is a well detailed model and the colors are a nice rendition of the Board of Transportation paint scheme. The specific car that WBB has chosen to produce is newer in design than the cars used in Brooklyn and Queens. It is also a single ender whereas the B&QT cars were double enders . Overall it does a nice job of representing a Brooklyn car . The Gorgi PCC is nice as well in B&QT Board of Transportation colors. Its 1/50 scale so a bit small. Also the Gorgi car has standee windows which the Brooklyn cars did not have.

Go run your car and enjoy it Art.

Art....I was somewhat disappointed in that the car is so light that...at least on my layout...it is not a smooth runner.  I think it is because electrical contact is not the best and perhaps some weight may make contact better...??  Anyway, my neighbor is a two rail O-scaler and he has one of these...AND...it runs smoothly in one direction but not so in the other.  Again, I think it is electrical contact being the problem.

In any case, the model is nicely done...very detailed.

Alan

On my Baltimore Transit Company PCC car, the bell sounds great and its a smooth runner...no complaints.

Mine looked and ran great, but I had to sell it.  My trolley loop has two sprung switches and it was so light it would not throw them.  I could not see any way to add any weight to it, so it is gone.

Well made, interesting design, sounds great.  My one quibble is the wheels are smaller than usual, which makes the care look great, but has been a bit unforgiving if there is a flaw in the track.  That may not be experienced by everyone else but I made a return loop of gargraves by bending it inside a loop of 027.  My curve isn't perfect and this car reminds me of that every once in a while.  

I was also surprised how light this model is, and I'm thinking about adding some weight to it...might help slow it down a little.

Out of the box and running on my Realtrax, it lists a little too much to the outside (especially on the curves), but I also noticed while running it with my Z750, that it does not take off until I reach a certain voltage level on the dial.  I am guessing that is normal, but given how light the streetcar is it seems it might run fine and list less at a slower speed were it not for the minimum voltage requirement.

[perhaps the min voltage also ensures the digital bell will always clangs...not a bad sounding bell for a digital sound byte(s)]

The detailing and paint scheme on the Chicago Surface Line model is great!

Robert

I have been looking at them of late. Seems there are some good deals on them right now. BUT....do they ride as high as the MTH PCC?? What curves will they handle. I like the MTH PCC in that it will run well on Super Streets smallest curves. I'd get the Williams unit if it will run on my curves and not look like a 4x4 truck! Any good side pics??

Hi Dave, I posted a youtube video I came across on another thread about E-Z Streets, and have read they will run nicely on the D21...they look to bind a bit too much on the D16.  I am pretty sure they would run on O27 & up.

Although, in the above video (not mine) the tight curves do seem to keep the overall speed in check.  The car is just so light that by the time you hit the 'minimum voltage' (I'm guessing 6-8 volts), it's moving at a pretty good clip.

When I ran my new one for testing on O42 it did not sit too high.  In fact I think some have characterized the wheels as being on the small side.

I'll try to share a pic or vid of mine running on the Realtrax (haven't had time to setup my EZ Street loop yet, even for testing), but here is a nice article I found by 'Railroad Model Craftsman' talking a little bit about the Peter Witt Streetcar history and the WBB version (with additional pictures).

Robert

I have four of them   They take a pounding at our open houses   They run great  Nice and smooth  One of them died when it was 6 months old and Williams replaced the whole thing free of charge

I have the Brooklyn & Queens Car for three years.  It runs great on

054 & 072 curves.  The bell is just fine, love the sound of it .  I paid

$65.00 for it at a Tampa Train Show, I have seen them listed for $130.00

since then.  

For the money and the operation it is a great deal.  I would like one

more and would pay $130.00 for it.  I am a big fan of WBB, I recommend

buying one.

Many thanks,

Billy C 

A nicely detailed, though somewhat delicate model, requiring careful handling.  Has realistic bell sounds and is a smooth runner on my 072 loop, which has NO switches.

I have three of those little gems, and have had no problems with them.  Operated them on my "regular" O gauge layout (currently FasTrack) and only gave my first unit a brief testing on D21 SuperStreets.  It ran okay on the Superstreets, but does perform even better on wider-diameter curves.

Any flat on side pics??? Does it ride like a 4x4 truck like MTH PCC or is i lower out of the box??? Thanks

Dave:

Trucks are definitely mounted lower and more realistically than the MTH PCC's. The WBB Peter Witts are very nice SCALE models, and have less of a "toy" look about them!

I was considering buying a Peter Witt street car but the WBB price kept me from getting one. If Trainworld or somebody else would have a nice discount price on one I would see about purchasing one.

Lee Fritz

I picked one up Sunday at a TCA meet for the bargain basement price of $40.

It surprised me that it runs nicely at only 5 volts on my DCS.

Won one as a door prize draw at our train club was thrilled to get this!

Great running and looking car!

Was giving some thought to tinkering with running on 2 rail track and using the overhead pickup as the other lead instead of centre rail.

Any ideas on what a good street system would be for the overhead?

That would have a good 50's look?

Great car by Williams Bachmann

Does the video above show it operating as slow as it'll go?

They will run considerably slower than is seen in that video.  I'm sure the operator there had to maintain a certain (higher) speed so the car would not stall on those tight SuperStreets curves.

No problem with mine. There is a Board of Transportation seal on my New York Peter Witt so it's no longer a B&QT.

Hi Yardie

Even though the Board of Transportation came about in 1940, most of the trolleys in Brooklyn still retained their tuscan and creme colors until the postwar years . Many of the cars in the 8000 series which were referred as the "Peter Witts" were scrapped still in the B&QT colors  All of these were gone by 1950 or so. These cars were all double enders so they had two sets of doors on both sides of the car and a pole at each end.

The 6000 series were single enders and were a unique B&QT design and not at all like the WBB model. There were about 200 of these, they were newer than the 8000 series and most received the Board of Transport colors although a some were scrapped wearing the B&QT colors . All gone by 1950-51.

PCC cars were still in their delivery colors sort of a Brown color in the early post war years. All were repainted into the Board of Transport scheme . They operated until 1956 lastly on the Church Ave, Mcdonald avenue and Coney Island avenue lines in Brooklyn. There was a stipulation in the financing agreement for these cars that the city operate them for at least 20 years and so they did.

The Green and Silver colors started being used after World War 2 . There were cars in these colors without the BOT seal as well as I remember. When the IRT and BMT which included the B&QT surface trolleys in Brooklyn were taken control of by the Board of Transportation in 1940, there were no real efforts to integrate the operations as one system other than free transfer points that were established. They still operated as if they were the same companies and people referred to them by those names. It wasn't until 1953 when the Transit Authority was formed that the system integration began.

So even though the WBB car is in the Board of Transport colors with the seal, we and the city still considered the real cars as B&QT back in the late 40s and up to 1950 or so when we rode them.

The Corgi GM Old-look bus I have has a BOTNY seal.

"Any good side pics??"

This is the best I have of mine.

Very Nice Bob!

Hi Allan,

Do you know if there is any trick or particular setup involved in achieving the slower running speeds?

I test ran mine with a Z750 controller and brick (the older 4amp style), and it would not run until I turned the dial to almost the end of the yellow section of the controller...roughly around this point (1/5 to 1/4 up on the dial)...

Was not sure if there is some minimum current feature as I mentioned earlier, but my other Williams Diesel and Steam engines react at voltages lower than the WBB Peter Witt Streetcar does.  Once the Z750 controller hits this level the light comes on and with a push of the direction button, the WBB streetcar takes off.  If I drop the dial down below this level it shuts down.

Anyone else have this experience?

Thanks again,

Robert

Bluelinec4

Where did you get those green elevated sections!!!

On our layout I want to add a elevated section that looks like that to accomodate out North Shore Line(Chicagoland area)/ Skokie Swift!!!!

Thanks!!

I have a Cleveland car and a Chicago car.  Two objections from my standpoint:  first, I sure wish that they had TMCC command control.  Virtually everything on my layout runs via command.  Second, the car, as my might know, is a model of a Baltimore car made by Brill.  As such it has that peculiar flat front end and is really not correct for either Cleveland or Chicago. 

Wish, also, that WBB would have made some optional molds with the more common rounded, three window front end.  I suppose that i could start cutting and making a more correct front BUT, not sure if it would be worth the effort.  Would also wish that they could work something out with Lionel to use their TMCC the way that Atlas, 3rd Rail and Weaver do.

Paul Fischer

Those are manufactured by our club  Silk City Bridgeworks.  Computer designed and laser cut

I have a Cleveland car and a Chicago car.  Two objections from my standpoint:  first, I sure wish that they had TMCC command control.  Virtually everything on my layout runs via command.  Second, the car, as my might know, is a model of a Baltimore car made by Brill.  As such it has that peculiar flat front end and is really not correct for either Cleveland or Chicago. 

 

Wish, also, that WBB would have made some optional molds with the more common rounded, three window front end.  I suppose that i could start cutting and making a more correct front BUT, not sure if it would be worth the effort.  Would also wish that they could work something out with Lionel to use their TMCC the way that Atlas, 3rd Rail and Weaver do.

 

Paul Fischer

 

Paul

When this car was initially released, I had a conversation with the WBB folks at York,explaining to them how one could make a double ended car with round ends by simply using the door side and rear rounded end in place of the street non door side and square front end on their model and modify the roof to replace the square end in the front with the round end of the rear and add a second pole. I explained to them that such a model would create a quite accurate model of a Petr Witt car used bu most cities that had them, particularly the Brooklyn car Needless to say, WBB brushed it off indicating that they were not interested in doing such a thing. Sad since the basic die work is already available.

While I am a big fan of WBB products and this one in particular because it was something no one else does, the company representatives that attend some of the venues do not seem interested in feedback.  Good customer service doesn't mean you have to do everything the customer would like, but at least pretend to listen.  I guess on the upside they have finally added reverse lockout switches to the newer stuff so someone listens once in a while.

Plus the fact that you would have to make different dies for certain companies. Be glad we have another type of streetcar instead of the PCCs and the Birneys.