PCC front Windows - Ends

[Jim Holland]

Greetings!

raymond at nauticom.net wrote:

> Also when did PRCo begin to paint around the front windshields black?

	The front windows on PRCo air cars are mounted in stainless steel 
or aluminum frames.  This gives a brighter look to the front end.  But 
even the 14s and 15s with the 24 degree layback *Butterfly Windows* the 
area around the front windows was painted dark - black!
	With the sealed windows on the 17s, the front windows were glazed 
in the same way (the Baby Ten series in San Francisco arrived with 
stainless steel on the front windows - as possible on other systems - but 
SF eventually mounted them in rubber.)
	Scholes photos PGH-1162 & PGH-1163 are in the yard at SHJ about 
1960 showing several cars, one of them 1705 after painted in the 
*Half-n'-a-Half-n-a* paint scheme and the front window area is clearly 
black.
	Car 1740 in the same photo is still in the original paint scheme 
with dash lights and wings and the right side of the front windows is 
clearly fading to cream with the center post completely faded.
	The belt rail on all PRCo PCC cars was cream until the advent of 
the *Half-n'-a-Half-n-a* paint scheme.  Then the belt rail and everything 
below it was red - everything above cream.  But on the front windows of 
the 17s there was a small amount of framing for the windows above the 
belt rail and this part is cream as well as the inverted "V" formation at 
the bottom of the windows which was also cream.  But the center post and 
the rest of the front window area is clearly black!
	Another interesting point is that both molding lines - on top and 
below the belt rail - got chernak green or black paint on cars with the 
*Half-n'-a-Half-n-a* paint scheme whereas only the lower molding at the 
belt rail was dark before.

James B. Holland
------- -- ---------
        Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo), June of 1949 -- June of 1953
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