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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">So true. And soon enough we too shall be
dead, and then all that will be left to recount that time of transition will be
whatever was written, correctly, incorrectly, with or without bias--but it will
be received wisdom and there will be no one left to challenge it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Dwight</FONT></DIV>
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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 6:37
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for
diesels</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Trouble with all this, Dwight, is that we are in our mid 70s
trying to remember our youth and the people who knew it well are pushing up
daisies. Wouldn't you like to go back and ask Jim
Symes? I know I would like to be able to talk to people like
Charlie Shauck (PRC Supt. of Power and Inclines) again … I think if he were
living he would be about 105 now. <BR><BR>When I wrote the PCC
books, I had access to a lot of records. I was told Sy Kashin, who did
the other book, interviewed some of the older participants of the ERPCC but
didn't have the paper records I had. He probably wished he had the
paper so he knew what to ask. I knew what to ask but the people I wanted
to ask were dead. <BR><BR>Such is life.<BR><BR><BR>On May 15, 2014, at
5:40 PM, Dwight Long wrote:<BR><BR>> <BR>> Fred<BR>> <BR>> Under
ideal circumstances and with a trained (they had to be operated like a T1 was
supposed to be and too many enginemen tried to operate them like K4s, which
gave rise to the "slippery" rep) and motivated engineer, the T1 actually
worked and worked well. Things were not ideal on the PRR, however, and
they did not take the effort, as NYC did with their Niagaras, to make them as
close to ideal as possible. But even if they had, they would have gone
the same way as the Niagaras. They simply could not compete with the
economics of diesel electric motive power. <BR>> <BR>> Santa Fe had some
"advanced 1920s" steam power built in the 30s and also some "war babies"
(Texas types) built during WWII. The latter were acquired only because
the ODT would not authorize further production of FTs, of which the Santa Fe
was an early adopter, and which they would have preferred to acquire.
Uncle John did not buy any new steam locos after the war. Interestingly
it was the Santa Fe 2-10-4s that were borrowed by the PRR in 1956 so that they
would not have to perform heavy overhauls on their own steam power to meet the
increased traffic of that summer. Symes was interested in how the Santa
Fe locos performed compared with the J1 class, and had tests run. The
Santa Fe locos were marginally better. I think some J1s lasted into
1957, but you are certainly correct that Columbus to Sandusky in the summer of
1956 was their last big show.<BR>> <BR>> Dwight<BR>> -----
Original Message ----- <BR>> From: Fred Schneider <BR>> To:
Western PA Trolley discussion <BR>> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 3:11
PM<BR>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<BR>> <BR>>
<BR>> I would have to agree with the statement you copied, Dwight,
that the enthusiasts' interest is inversely proportional to the carriers
economic viability. You could probably sell 100 books on the Rio
Grande Southern for every one on the economics of moving freight trains at
streetcar headways on the Union Pacific. Same thing applies with our
trolleys … the lines we loved the most in Pittsburgh were things like 23
Sewickley or 29 Thornburg … not the money making ones like 88 Frankstown or 22
Crosstown or 85 Bedford.<BR>> <BR>> How many modern steam
locomotives do you know? The modern ones were bought by dumb
railroaders who should have bought diesels. The N&W J class
and Y6bs and As were rare in the industry. So were the Nickel
Plate Berkshires. The Santa Fe probably had their share of modern power
because it was cheaper than sending a shop crew 100 miles out into the Mojave
Desert to put an engine back together. The bulk of what was out
there even into the mid 1950s were critters built in the teens and twenties
with friction bearings. <BR>> <BR>> Now if we are
talking crews … that took a strike by the FEC that went on for months about
1963 to end it on one railroad, then Amtrak to end it on national passenger
service, and eventually it disappeared. But even Penn Central had
100 mile engine crew days and 150 mile train crew days. That meant
an engineman working from Harrisburg to Philadelphia got paid 1.03 days for
somewhere between 105 and 140 minutes actual work plus 30 minutes additional
report time. Make a round trip in one day and you get 2.06 days
pay. Work three days a week and you get 6 1/4 days
pay. I think when the Metroliners were put into service,
they had some guys working Washington - New York that made a round trip in one
day … something like 6 or 7 hours … and got close to 4 days pay for
that. Obscene. <BR>> <BR>> We had that argument ten
days ago about the idiocy of building the T-1 from scratch and where they are
going to run the sucker. And I will repeat what I said then, "If we're
going to build something from scratch, a New York Central J3 Hudson makes a
whole lot more sense than replicating something that was no good when it was
new." The J-1 was slippery on starting. It enveloped
the crews in a rolling dust cloud. They tried to correct the
problems with one or two of them that had the poppet valves replaced with
Walschart valve gear and piston valves … I think 5547 was one of
those. But when you are at the end of the rope with a piece of
junk, you don't pour dollar bills down a well. <BR>>
<BR>> Remember that this was before the rules were rewritten for
today's tourist railroads. A steam locomotive had to have the
flues removed so you could inspect the inside of the boiler every four years
unless you could document 12 months in the first four years when it did not
run, they you could get an automatic fifth year. That means every
steam locomotive until sometime around 2000 needed new flues every 4
years. Did any of those T-1s ever get a second set of
flues? I think they were all out of service by 1952 which suggests
to me the flues ran out in 1950 and the ICC gave them two one year extensions
and then they were all scrapped. <BR>> <BR>> The
J-1s were a little more reliable … I gather they were retubed about 1948, and
then around 1952 and that would take some up to the end of 1956 out in
Columbus.<BR>> <BR>> On May 15, 2014, at 12:13 PM, Dwight Long
wrote:<BR>> <BR>>> <BR>>> Fred<BR>>> <BR>>> While I
agree with most of what you say (the only part being the 100 mile rule, which
with modern steam power was quite obsolete—a modern steam loco could run a
thousand miles before needing that sort of attention), we were discussing the
PRR, not railroads in general. In the PRR’s case one had to take
internal railroad politics into account. They had more effect on the
timing of conversion to diesel (which was inevitable) than anything else,
including then current legislation. As soon as Martin Clement and John
Deasy were deposed, and James Symes became the power on the PRR (even though
Walter Franklin was actually the President for a while), the conversion
proceeded as quickly as the PRR could obtain diesels—and from any
builder! Had that transition to power in Philadelphia taken place even
five years earlier, there would have been no T1s or Q2s and the conversion
would have been more orderly, less pell-mell, and ultimately less costly for
the so-called Standard Railroad of the World. <BR>>> <BR>>>
And now someone wants to build a T1 from scratch???? Just goes to
prove the saying—not sure if was from Jack White or George Hilton—that the
amount of rail enthusiast interest in a particular railway or railway part is
inversely proportional to its economic usefulness.<BR>>> <BR>>>
Dwight<BR>>> <BR>>> From: Fred Schneider <BR>>> Sent:
Thursday, 15 May, 2014 09:01<BR>>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion
<BR>>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels<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 and well
a lot of ground we had used for shop buildings. Might even be able to
sell some shop buildings to other people for factories but that isn't too
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 before it needs any servicing. Fueling can be done from a
truck driven up to the railroad … we don't need water columns, tanks, coal
tipples. And the steam engine will run about 100 miles between
service stops and it needs 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 Philadelphia to
Harrisburg, there was a K4s stationed in Lancaster as a protect
engine. In the evening it sat in the station facing west because
most trains ran west in the evening. In the morning in faced
east. Always with a crew on it. John Bowman told the
story of standing in the cab of that K4 one day talking when he was told to
jump off NOW. The signals had changed to clear on the pocket
track. They were going to work. In January 1938, when the
wires were energized to Harrisburg, the protect engine was no longer
needed. <BR>>> <BR>>> The steam engine may have been pretty
to the railfan … dynamic … great to watch. But we have to think
how many billions of dollars were saved by scrapping them ……….. and how much
cleaner the sky is over Pittsburgh, Pitcairn, Glenwood, Rook, McKees Rocks and
other places. <BR>>> <BR>>> I've been sending these guys
some interesting articles on Pittsburgh Railways. I have ignored
the smoke control stories but they are there too. And there was an
occasional picture of downtown on days when you couldn't 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 economics of railroad
operation. Some of David Morgan's writing talk about the
reduction/elimination of labor costs associated with conversion to 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 cooperate with smoke control. Blame cannot
be totally based on either smoke control, economics or John L. Lewis and his
boys. <BR>>>>> <BR>>>>> <A
href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FisbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3025%2C2594239">http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FisbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3025%2C2594239</A><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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