Westinghouse -- GE -- Again -- !!!!!!!!!

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Not necessarily so.  How many MTA or MBTA rapid transit cars also had MCM
control?

John Swindler is standing next to me.  He points out that this is a math
problem and not a GE issue.  His understanding is that UMTA gave MBTA money to
rebuild 50 PCC cars with possible add-ons and that there were not that many
Picture Window cars remaining.  Eventually some one got the bright idea to
find 50 matching cars and they just happened to be Westinghouse, for whatever
reason.  John believes that they could also have picked GE wartime cars.

Jim Holland wrote:

> Greetings!
>
>         So that fits the oddball theory even more - the cars were unusual
> compared to the bulk of the fleet, needed different and special parts,
> so it was easier to mothball these than keep them going.  And that is
> still in keeping with my final paragraph in the quote below.
>
>         Is this cam control similar to that used on trolley coaches?
>
> Fred W. Schneider III wrote:
>
> > Hold it.  Don't take it out of context.
>
> > The Picture Window cars had MCM control, the only PCC cars built for
> > domestic sale with cam control.  The design was totally unrelated to
> > the commutator control marketed by GE on all the other cars.  MCM was
> > an evolutionary advance (or whatever) from the earlier PC (first built
> > circa 1917 for four of the IRT Steinway tunnel cars) and PCM (1928 for
> > Chicago Sedans).  Unlike the PC and PCM units which used air over oil
> > engines to rotate the came shafts to make and brake resistance, MCM
> > used an electric motor drive.  Cam controls were, at least in the
> > 1950s and later, the standard rapid transit car scheme until it was
> > supplement by and later virtually supplanted by solid state thrystor
> > control schemes.  Interestingly, I worked all day today with another
> > trainman at Arden who created his own version of history ... hour by
> > hour ... tidbit by tidbit.  One of his gems was that cam controls were
> > a Westinghouse invention and something that GE never used.  I have
> > never found any reference to cam controls prior to the IRT
> > application.  However, the other four IRT cars in that Steinway tunnel
> > order had Westinghouse PK control, which was simply a K-controller
> > mounted under the car driven by a pneumatic head in response to the
> > commands from the platform controller.  And what was a K-controller?
> > Simply another form of cam.  One friend described PK as a poor man's
> > PC; it fell out of favor very early on but some examples have survived
> > at Seashore (Montreal was the biggest fan of PK and Seashore actually
> > took four ex Montreal PK controllers and put them on two open cars in
> > an interesting attempt to run MU open cars in a museum).  In general,
> > however, Westinghouse still favored pneumatic unit switch control,
> > under an alphabet soup of HL, HB, AL, AB, VA, ABLFM, etc. for most
> > remote control applications until after WWII while GE used electric
> > solenoid switches for hand advance schemes under the term Type M or
> > cams for automatic progression controllers.  The beauty of a cam is
> > the lack of a need for complex electrical interlocks for automatic
> > progression schemes.
>
> > Jim Holland wrote:
>
> >      Greetings!
>
> > A while back we had discussions on the split of the electrical gear
> > between these two suppliers and were wondering why this was done, esp in
> > Pgh a Westinghouse town.  While this does not specifically answer the
> > question of 'why-the-split' it does reveal reasons as to 'why the cars
> > were scrapped.'
>
> >   Again from the very last para-giraffe on pg.34 *PCC From Coast to
> > Coast* I quote:::::::
>
> >    "The confusion with which the MBTA dealt with its PCC fleet is
> > exemplified by the scrapping program begun in late 1976.  Of the 12
> > all-electrics eliminated, half had been overhauled under the federal
> > rehabilitation program between 1973 and 1976.  Some of those cars had
> > gone directly from overhaul at Everett to pre-scrap storage at
> > Arborway.  Also hard hit by the scrapper's torch were the Picture Window
> > cars, both groups being singled out because of their non-standard
> > General Electric control systems."
>
> >   While I personally prefer Westinghouse, I am still quick to point out
> > that this GE scrapping was probably due more to expediency than
> > inferiority - the only GE cars on the Boston system were the
> > all-electrics (25-cars) and Picture Window cars (50-cars) out of a total
> > of 346 PCC cars.  With just better than 20% of the fleet being GE, they
> > were more oddball and a nuisance and ultimately used as a *reason(?) for
> > fleet downsizing regardless of the fact that they were the newest
> > vehicles on the property.
>
> James B. Holland
>
>         Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
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