Schedules & Operators -- Charleroi & Washington

[Jim Holland]

Greetings!

HRBran99 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> 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? >>
> 
> 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.

	Believe it is Fed law which states that a person can only drive
10-hours in any 16 hour period and must have 8-hours off between shifts.

> 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.

	And how does he do that when the Charleroi and Washington did not have
24-hour service?

> 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.

	They didn't run trippers on Charleroi and Washington for that purpose!

> 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.

	That's because a round-trip is almost 4-hours time!  So, did the guy
who pulled a car out of Charleroi or Tylerdale in the morning get
relieved there or elsewhere?  And if he didn't, did he live there?  And
if he didn't live there, he must have driven to work in the morning! 
And the same for those who pulled into these Car Houses in the evening.
	Service was 30-minutes and once all cars were out on the line, the same
cars stayed all day until cars pulled in late night and evening.  Rush
hour service was to Shannon, West Library, Riverview and Canonsburg.
	For many years, the interurbans ran tandem leaving downtown Pgh. (and
arriving, of course) on the hour and half-hour with Shannon cars
providing local service.  Some local service was provided all the way to
West Library, even on the weekends!
	What is interesting is that during the rush hours it would take longer
to get to Washington but the same time to get to Roscoe thru Charleroi,
and the latter had much more street running!  Haven't studied the
schedules closely enough to see if an extra car was added for rush
hour.  So the schedules indicate weekday and weekend only service for
such times.

> 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.

	Yes - I have a newspaper article which detailed one of their
get-togethers from the early 1990s.  They used to meet in Little
Washington.  But I'll be darned if I can put my finger on that article
now.

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