Charters & Overhead

[Fred Schneider]

One night back when (as one ages, one has trouble know when when was), I
was standing up on Mount Oliver watching a 44 or 48 car going through
special work.  Pole dewired.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Lots of
fireworks.  That was out of the ordinary.  Lights flickered on and off
as the pole jumped from hot wire to dead wire to hot wire.  Tremendous
arcing from wires to pole.  Pole started changing color ... brown, red,
orange, yellow, cream ...I never knew until that time that a trolley
pole on a PCC could pull enough of an arc to cause it to melt and turn
into a piece of over-cooked (not al denti) spaghetti.  Next time I saw
the motorman was down at Tunnel.  I could see through the open window.
The motorman's mouth was closed.  The super's mouth was open.  

-----Original Message-----
From: HRBran99 at aol.com [mailto:HRBran99 at aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 7:48 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: Re: Charters & Overhead


In a message dated 12/05/1999 5:22:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
pghpcc at pacbell.net writes:

<< I can
 only remember a handful of dewirements, was on board one car which
 derailed, and know of only one or two other such mishaps.  Certainly
 doesn't mean they didn't happen, but these unusual incidents seemed
 rather rare! >>

One of the most "fireworks like" dewirements in the history of
Pittsburgh 
trolley operations occurred to me one Sunday on the single track at the
Saw 
Mill Run trestle. I entered the single track (inbound), started across
the 
bridge and noticed the interior lights flashing on and off. There was
then a 
snapping sound and what appeared to be great flashes of lightning. It
was, 
however, a sunny July Sunday in Pittsburgh. All lights then went off and
the 
car had no power. The car coasted to a stop and I got out to find all
the 
overhead from the rear end of the car all the way back to the middle of
the 
bridge was down. After the emergency crew arrived we found out the 
trolley-wheel had worn to the point where it had split into two pieces.
The 
trolley wire got wedged in between what now amounted to two trolley
wheels on 
the end of the pole and caught there. The car was moving and kept taking
out 
hangars, span wires, and other assorted hardware until the wire broke
and the 
car was without power. It amounted to a two hour delay until the
overhead was 
back in place and my dead car (now also with a bent pole) was pushed
back to 
S.H.Jct.

Just another memory of good PCC times!

HrB