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<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Fred</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">OK, if you insist, the Q2. But I would
submit that there were enough changes between the T1 prototypes and the
production run that the blueprints would not have been the same. If anyone
wonders why this was so, a reading of PRR test trip reports on the first two
will quickly promote understanding-----------------</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">You did not mention two other reasons for
favoring Borgon Tanner's account of his B&O Benwood experience:
1) His method of getting from Benwood to Wheeling--Co-Op Transit
tram. Co-Op was successor to West Penn's Wheeling Traction Co.;
2) The article used photos from J.J. Young as part of its
illustration. Anything with J.J. Young photos has a head start on being a
good read. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Another gem in the current <EM>CT</EM> is the
three photo layout on those wonderful Brill Master Unit adaptations (basically
an advanced Master Unit with center doors) built for Indianapolis Railways just
before the dawn of the PCC age. Indy really had no need for PCCs with
these great cars. IMHO they are the most attractive of the PCC precursors,
especially when painted in the red and cream scheme shown in the article (as
opposed to the blue and yellow, which did not come off as well). Saw one
in action in 1952 but would my father stop the car to let me get a decent
fot? Hell no, let alone ride one! My only shot is an out the auto
window attempt, and with a box Brownie that does not work all that
well.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">I got a chuckle out of your comment about being
able to use cars once the roads were paved, since my grandfather traveled all
over the USA in the 1920s in an open touring car in order to take photos which
were converted to lantern slides (some members of this list will have to ask
their parents or grandparents what they were) for educational purposes in the
Kansas City Public School district. He took his wife and my mother;
they sometimes stayed in tents--campgrounds were the Motel 6s of the era--and
sometimes in the early "tourist courts." Carried at least two and
sometimes four spares, air pump and patches and was well versed on how to patch
a tire tube (again, ask your parents). Paved roads were for wusses!
But they sure got the masses into motoring.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Dwight</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=fwschneider@comcast.net href="mailto:fwschneider@comcast.net">Fred
Schneider</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">Western PA Trolley
discussion</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, May 15, 2014 8:08
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for
diesels</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>The T-1 was a prewar design, Dwight. Remember 6110
and 6111 came before the war or at least before we jumped into the war.
They came off Baldwin's erecting floor in 1942. So the other 50
qualified (or could possibly have qualified) as copying an old
design. Give me another example of something built during the war
from brand new
blueprints.<BR>_____________________________________________________________________________________________________<BR><BR>I
have no idea how fast the typical automobile wore out then. My father
told me that a Model A Ford was good for about 50,000 to 60,000
miles. I would suggest a late 1930s - early 1940s car was good for
a maximum 75,000 miles provided that you regularly changed the oil and lubed
it and also replaced the valves and rings once somewhere around 50,000
miles. By the 1950s, 100,000 had become common as long as you were
willing to "Fix Or Repair Daily." :<) My dad
actually got a whopping 146,000 out of a 1956 Mercury.
Today? I guess 200,000 is perfectly acceptable but twice that is
not at all uncommon if you are a high mileage driver. I have
one friend from high school who commuted from Selma, Alabama to a job in
Montgomery and used his car also as a journalist … he got 416,000 on a Camry
before someone ran into it and forced him to buy a new one. But
almost any car is so much cheaper to drive today! Of course that
statement refers to inflation adjusted costs. While the new car
costs are just about where they should be, adjusted for normal inflation over
the last 50 years, and gasoline is a tad ahead of normal inflation, the repair
costs have dropped drastically and the depreciation has too (because longevity
has doubled) so that I find it is costing me less than half per mile today
(maybe closer to one-third) to drive a car compared to the early
1960s. Isn't it great not to have to change oil every month, to
buy new tires every year, to buy a muffler every year or two, to tune the
engine every six months? Of course having dumb politicians
who are afraid to raise the gas taxes to fix roads that need to be raised to
compensate for burning less gas per mile also helps. (I think the
IRS reimbursement rate was around a dime a mile in 1960, today it is 56 1/2
cents. But inflation should have it well over a
dollar.<BR><BR>Let's go back to the 1940s. I have no idea how many
cars there were in the USA in 1940 and 1945 and 1950. I have some
rough ideas for 1920 and 1930. I know the number of cars rose
drastically from 1920 to 1930 because we paved highways. Once the
roads were paved, now you could use a car. The number of vehicles, per
adult, went up about three-fold between 1920 and 1930. I
<BR><BR>_____________________________<BR><BR>Just picked up the summer Classic
Trains (or as Ed Lybarger used to call it, Trains Heavy) … nice story on a
fireman's viewpoint of working steam out of Wheeling WVA in the 1950s on the
Best and Only. Some of you might like this because it was close to
Pittsburgh. I like it because Grandpa and Grandma Schneider hailed
from Marietta, Ohio and thus I have ridden the passenger trains between
Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Williamstown and Parkersburg and I have photographed Q4b
Mikes, P5 (USRA) and P6 Pacifics and those huge EM1 artics in the Ohio
Valley. It brings me home again. Might do the same for
some of you.<BR><BR>This will stir up the trolley jollies … but I guess I like
that magazine because it reminds me of my youth when there were a whole pack
of mainline railroads in the US instead of just four, and CN stayed north of
the border instead of going all the way to Mexico, and the diesels had all
different colors … and usually different for passenger than for freight on the
same railroad. I guess I owe the editor a thank you note for taking me
home in more ways than one. The picture of the Central of Georgia
diesel at Columbus, Ga., in gray, blue, black, and orange paint … they were
pretty … reminds me of standing next to the tracks east of Macon photographing
the Nancy Hanks one summer day in 1956. Unfortunately I didn't
take color until 1960 and then didn't use a stable film (Kodachrome) until
about 1963. <BR><BR><BR>On May 15, 2014, at 1:06 PM, Dwight Long
wrote:<BR><BR>> <BR>> Fred<BR>> <BR>> It’s called transition and
automatic transition came about in freight units with what enthusiasts call
the F5 and what EMD called an advance F3. The F5 was simply a late model
F3 with automatic transition. I’d have to look up the transition (yes
that was intended) in pax units or other manufacturer’s products, but I’d
guess the E7 was about right. It was an improvement and likely led to
lower maintenance and operational costs as the engineer did not have to make
decisions that required some skill—the loco made them for him. But that
alone (manual transition) was no bar at all to dieselization. The
rewards were too great to forestall it. Yes, the ODT prohibited the
making of road diesels and rationed production of switchers during the
war. You are partially right about steam loco production, but not
totally. Otherwise there would have been no T1s!!!!<BR>> <BR>> You
are also correct about oil. There was enough of it but not rubber.
Also consider that at the rate cars wore out in those days, if no restrictions
had been placed on driving, think of all the steel, copper and other
war-needed materials that would have had to go into making spare parts. The
easiest and most politically acceptable way of mitigating this was to ration
the fuel.<BR>> <BR>> Dwight<BR>> <BR>> From: Fred Schneider
<BR>> Sent: Thursday, 15 May, 2014 11:23<BR>> To: Western PA Trolley
discussion <BR>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<BR>> The
original FT design and perhaps also the EA and E6 diesels from EMD required
that the engineer separately control engine speed and motor control
notching. In other words, you notch up the engines to produce a
higher voltage and then you separately notch up the motors like a
streetcar. I think that all changed with the F3 an E7
models. I really don't know because the only engine I
regularly ran was a GE 44 tonner at Strasburg. <BR>> <BR>>
So again, we have pre-war and post-war technology. And the
manufacturers were forbidden from making changes during the war.
You were stuck with prewar designs until the war was over. It doesn't
say that EMD didn't know how … only that they were not allowed to make
improvements during the war. I am not even sure that EMD and Alco
were allowed to manufacture diesels during the war … remember that they used
oil that we needed for the war. <BR>> <BR>> On the peripheral
subject of oil … as I understand it, we had plenty of oil / gasoline and the
rationing for domestic use was only to conserve tires because Japan controlled
the rubber supply and we had not really perfected a good synthetic rubber
yet. Perhaps EMD simply shifted the LaGrange, Illinois plant to
war production. <BR>> <BR>> Back to design restrictions, same
applied, John, to new steam. The railroads could invest in new
steam during the war but it had to be from old designs. The War
Production Board did not allow a railroad to draw up new blueprints for an all
new engine. The Pennsylvania J-1 2-10-4, for example, was allowed
because it was nothing more than a Chesapeake and Ohio class T-1 2-10-4 in
disguise. Of course there were minor changes … headlight moved up,
keystone on the smokebox … things that made it look Pennsy.<BR>> <BR>>
Europe had their problems too. In 1947 there were numerous
articles in the Pittsburgh Press about coal shortages in your mother's
country, John. British industry was crippled because the mines
couldn't turn out coal fast enough.<BR>> <BR>> I would contest that
labor was cheap in Europe … It isn't cheap if you are a captive
market. If you build it for yourself, then it isn't cheap.
Their wages were lower in relation to ours therefore we brand it as
cheap. But in relation to their needs? Maybe
not. Remember, for example, that Germany essentially lost an
entire generation of its men because of World War II. They had a
matriarchal society after the war except for the Gastarbeiter or guest workers
from other nations that helped them over the crisis. It took them years
to get over the crisis … auto factories, for example, were not fully back into
production until the very tail end of the 1940s in Germany. I once
met a man our parents age in Hamburg, Germany … spent an afternoon in his
flat. He had been in a prisoner of war camp in the USA during the
tail end of WW2 … I think Salt Lake City. Many of the officers
were moved here because they knew enough to be safe guarded on this continent
instead of housed over there. He was an office. I asked him
what portion were in prisoner of war camps at the end of the war … his answer
was "those who were not dead." That was an over simplification but
it does give you an idea of what the war did to them. When you
start with a total population and wipe out 10% and you lose more men than
women and you also lose a big chunk in their 20s … you have a big labor
shortage after the war. Russia, Lithuania, and some other nations
were worse. (We don't comprehend … most of our guys came
home. We lost 1 out of 1,000 people in our population and we
fought in Japan, Italy, North Africa, Britain and Germany.) <BR>> <BR>>
But in relation to us … in terms of a captive economy … yes, raw salaries and
wages were lower. In Germany, even as late as 1960, they got about 25
cents for every dollar our workers got. Today they do better than
we do. <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> On May 15,
2014, at 10:29 AM, John Swindler wrote:<BR>> <BR>>> <BR>>>
<BR>>> Timing is often overlooked. Good point.<BR>>>
<BR>>> Could railroads dieselized earlier?? I doubt it.
Maybe diesel engine technology needed improved dependability from forced WW2
requirements??? (dunno - just raising question) <BR>>>
<BR>>> Same with jet engines. How many crashes before jet airline
travel became a reasonable safe alternative?? And the price became
more than competitive?? I was paying the same price for air fare to
Europe in 1988-2004 as I paid in 1968/9. (again, dunno - this is Ed's
bailiwick) <BR>>> <BR>>> The railroads could have invested in new
steam locos after WW2, as was the case in much of Europe. But fuel was
cheap in US and labor was expensive. Oil had to be imported to Europe
with expensive US dollars. For Europe, coal was cheap, and so was
labor. It took me only a couple days during summer of 1969 to earn more
than what London Transport was paying their conductors for the
month.<BR>>> <BR>>> Related to 'timing' is the necessary support
systems for a new technology. Consider computers, for example.
What good is the computer without the associated software and other
systems?? <BR>>> <BR>>> <BR>>> <BR>>>
<BR>>>> From: <A
href="mailto:trams2@comcast.net">trams2@comcast.net</A><BR>>>> To: <A
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org</A><BR>>>>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 09:10:00 -0400<BR>>>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW
blamed for diesels<BR>>>> <BR>>>> We also need to consider
the timing...railroads could have converted to<BR>>>> diesels much
earlier than they did, but would have had to write off a large<BR>>>>
amount of investment to do so. By the end of the war, though, a lot of
that<BR>>>> investment was simply worn out and had to be replaced
anyway. At this point<BR>>>> the railroads were simply
following the dollars and buying the most<BR>>>> transportation they
could get for the buck. Steam locomotives and their<BR>>>>
attendant infrastructure were horribly inefficient, and did not get
replaced<BR>>>> in kind. John L. Lewis was a side
show.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Ed<BR>>>> <BR>>>>
-----Original Message-----<BR>>>> From: <A
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounces@mailman.dementix.org">pittsburgh-railways-bounces@mailman.dementix.org</A><BR>>>>
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounces@mailman.dementix.org] On Behalf Of
Fred<BR>>>> Schneider<BR>>>> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014
9:01 AM<BR>>>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion<BR>>>>
Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<BR>>>> <BR>>>>
<BR>>>> I think we have to look at everything ..<BR>>>>
<BR>>>> 1. Smoke control laws.<BR>>>>
<BR>>>> 2. UMW strikes making it hard to get
coal.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> 3. Economics of running
steam . we can lay off 4 out of every 5 workers<BR>>>> and well a lot
of ground we had used for shop buildings. Might even be
able<BR>>>> to sell some shop buildings to other people for factories
but that isn't too<BR>>>> likely.<BR>>>> <BR>>>>
4. No need for water in the deserts of the American
west. <BR>>>> <BR>>>> 5. Locomotive
availability . that diesel will run for thousands of miles<BR>>>>
before it needs any servicing. Fueling can be done from a truck
driven up<BR>>>> to the railroad . we don't need water columns,
tanks, coal tipples. And<BR>>>> the steam engine will run
about 100 miles between service stops and it needs<BR>>>> a lot of
spare engines along the way because it likes to self destruct.
<BR>>>> <BR>>>> An example of the self destruct
concept.. When the PRR ran steam from<BR>>>> Philadelphia
to Harrisburg, there was a K4s stationed in Lancaster as a<BR>>>>
protect engine. In the evening it sat in the station facing west
because<BR>>>> most trains ran west in the evening. In
the morning in faced east.<BR>>>> Always with a crew on
it. John Bowman told the story of standing in the<BR>>>>
cab of that K4 one day talking when he was told to jump off NOW.
The<BR>>>> signals had changed to clear on the pocket track.
They were going to work.<BR>>>> In January 1938, when the wires were
energized to Harrisburg, the protect<BR>>>> engine was no longer
needed. <BR>>>> <BR>>>> The steam engine may have been
pretty to the railfan . dynamic . great to<BR>>>> watch.
But we have to think how many billions of dollars were saved
by<BR>>>> scrapping them ..... and how much cleaner the sky is over
Pittsburgh,<BR>>>> Pitcairn, Glenwood, Rook, McKees Rocks and other
places. <BR>>>> <BR>>>> I've been sending these guys
some interesting articles on Pittsburgh<BR>>>> Railways.
I have ignored the smoke control stories but they are there
too.<BR>>>> And there was an occasional picture of downtown on days
when you couldn't<BR>>>> see the top of the Gulf Building from the
street. <BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>> On May
15, 2014, at 8:21 AM, John Swindler wrote:<BR>>>>
<BR>>>>> <BR>>>>> <BR>>>>> Easier to blame
another industry/organization than to look at the<BR>>>> economics of
railroad operation. Some of David Morgan's writing talk
about<BR>>>> the reduction/elimination of labor costs associated with
conversion to<BR>>>> diesel - despite the high initial capital costs
for diesel operation. <BR>>>>> <BR>>>>>
<BR>>>>> <BR>>>>> <BR>>>>>
<BR>>>>>> From: <A
href="mailto:fwschneider@comcast.net">fwschneider@comcast.net</A><BR>>>>>>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 14:33:45 -0400<BR>>>>>> To: <A
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org</A><BR>>>>>>
Subject: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<BR>>>>>>
<BR>>>>>> Writer forgets that the PRR announced several days
earlier that it would<BR>>>> cooperate with smoke
control. Blame cannot be totally based on either<BR>>>>
smoke control, economics or John L. Lewis and his boys.
<BR>>>>>> <BR>>>>>> <A
href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FisbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6kwEAAAAIBAJ&p">http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FisbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6kwEAAAAIBAJ&p</A><BR>>>>>>
g=3025%2C2594239<BR>>>>>> <BR>>>>>>
<BR>>>>>> <BR>>>>>>
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href="https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways">https://mailman.dementix.org/mailman/listinfo/pittsburgh-railways</A><BR>>>>>
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