MTFCA Forum

Ran across this, this morning.
https://twistedsifter.com/videos/new-yo ... lor-added/

Great video, thanks for sharing. I never realized NYC had cable cars. jb

Great clip! but my eye fell on a strange detail, and maybe the infinite wisdom of this forums combined members might be able to answer it :
Right at 3:08 a commercial vehicle enters the frame from the left, you get only a rear three quarter vieuw of it but this got me curious ; it seems to have a third front wheel right in the middle of the regular two , at closer vieuw it looks to be almost in the center of the car ??
Anyone have a clue..

I see it too. It is turning and may be the flywheel. It is not touching the ground. Note the shadows of the other wheels. It is particularly low.

Neat movie! I have seen it before in its original format. It is much nicer to see "upgraded" this way, and looks a bit more natural.

The delivery truck is quite interesting. I suspect that it is a motorized drive wheel setup that was marketed around that time to convert horse-drawn wagons to motor wagons. There were several companies that offered such things, one in particular became quite well known, but I cannot recall the name offhand. San Jose CA has a fire truck so equipped, but I think it is a single wheel attached up front. Somewhere years ago,I saw pictures of a three wheeled gizmo that went under the front of a wagon in order to motorize the thing. I don't think the idea worked very well overall, however, this one seemed to move along quite nicely on the relatively smooth roads of New York City.

You have good eyes Rich, looks like there's a belt running over the 'flywheel'
Good thing they didn't have speedbumps in those days