Scheduling Operators -- Charleroi & Washington

[HRBran99 at aol.com]

In a message dated 04/05/2000 6:36:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
pghpcc at pacbell.net writes:

<< Were there crew bunk houses at any location for
 operators? >>

About the southern end of the system I cannot say, however, even at South 
Hills Car House, in the 1970s, there were beds in the second floor of the 
administration building for operators. Usually they were only used I someone 
got tired and wanted to rest during the period between the two pieces of a 
split run. Older operators, at that time, said the bunkhouse, or whatever it 
may have been called, was used normally when an operator came in late off a 
run and had to take another run out in the early morning. This saved the time 
of travel between car house and home and back. However, labor union 
agreements probably ended the practice by requiring a proper length of time 
between the end of a service day and the beginning of a new service day for 
operators. 

PRCo. and PATransit both make use of having operators use public transit to 
and from relief points and pull-in/out locations. An operator who pulled a 
car into the far southern car houses would be expected to use the PRCo. 
service to return to wherever they started from. I know that even in the 
1960s and early 1970s trippers were run just for the purpose of getting 
operators to and from the car houses and home.  Several So. Hills trippers 
during this period were for operators. Any regular passengers who got on were 
secondary to the main "mission" of the trip which was to insure operators had 
a way to and from work. This was when transit management had more of a common 
sense head on its shoulders than it does today.

I remember one former Charleroi/Washington operator telling me once that they 
had runs which would make one round trip in the morning and one round trip in 
the evening rush periods. He said these runs were easy and you got paid eight 
hours even though they worked less than eight, and yet they complained about 
the deadhead time from one end to the other. He was, in telling me this, 
giving his reason for the abandonment of the Washington County service. And 
this, of course, was not the reason but labor/management concerns may have 
played a part in the fact that PRCo. did not continue the service.

There still have to be some of these former operators around. I don't know if 
any are on this list, or if there is any way to find out which ones may be 
around yet. They would be an excellent source of operational information.

HrB