Johnstown PCC Scans & a Pittsburgh Fantasy

[Jim Holland]

Greetings!

Charles Brown wrote:

> mentioned that they were the original rails of the narrow-gauge railway
> (was it always steam or had they converted it to electric?) and I wanted
> to confirm that with you.  It seemed like they used awfully wide ties
> for the narrow-gauge railway for them to simply lay your bizarre wide
> gauge tracks alongside of them.

	Never could finger this out, either!  Steam narrow gauge and 
electric interurbans ran concurrently for a while, so interurbans had to 
*sit in the hole* while coal drags ran by.  More than the ex-hillside 
segment north of Saw Mill Run overpass to SHJ was single track; some of it 
running into Castle Shannon had single track as well.  This section 
between Castle Shannon and the Saw Mill Run overpass was quickly double 
tracked.  While the steam trains did not run into SHJ, immediately upon 
leaving SHJ heading south was single track in the early days.

> Cincinnati was a bit weird anyway.  They didn't know how
> many wires to stick overhead and while they got the correct number of
> trolley poles on the cars (2), they stuck them both at one end!  Did any
> other system use the wide gauge (5'2") outside of Pennsylvania?

	Kenny J won't like that (poles on the front of a PCC) unless it is 
double ended!
	Louisville was 5 feet even steven.
	St. Louis (the city, not IT) was 4' 10"  --  well, that's wider 
than standard, right?  Word has it that they forgot to regauge the 
trackbrakes when they sent some of these cars to San Fran!
	Philadelphia was almost standard gauge at 5 feet 2 and one quarter 
inches  --  they just have to be different!
	Toronto is 4' 10" like St. Louis.

> Now if you guys could only explain where the heck Baltimore got their
> gauge from... 

	They had wider horses or carriages there!

> BTW, I'll be out of town next week so no fair talking about anything
> interesting until I get back.

	What trolley / lrv city are you visiting?

-- 
James B. Holland
       PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY (PRCo), June of 1949 -- June of 1953
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