Car Life

[Bob Rathke]

Speaking of vehicle longevity: does anyone know what happened to the Mack buses that PRC
bought in 1957?  They were originally assigned to routes 1 and 5 to replace trolleys, but the
Macks were soon used on other lines, and then they eventually disappeared in favor of GMs.  I
always assumed that the Macks were a maintenance problem, but am not sure.

Bob 12/27

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Kenneth Josephson wrote:

> "Fred W. Schneider III" wrote:
>
> >   Consider the
> > repair shop you don't need.  Here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we have an
> > unusual transit authority.  Red Rose reengined all of the 1970 Fageol's
> > once before they finally put them out to pasture.  Conestoga
> > Transportation Company had NO money all through the 1960s to reengine a
> > bus but they did buy some nice used coaches.  Red Rose, on the other
> > hand, is very unique in its overhaul practices.  Capital Area Transit in
> > Harrisburg, which was run by ATA Management (the same people who had it
> > has a private company), is still running scads of fishbowl GMs in the
> > rush hour because they may be the only other public agency in
> > Pennsylvania to maintain buses.  For the most part, we don't need
> > overhaul shops anymore because we don't do much more than safety
> > maintenance, i.e. brakes, steering, light bulbs. We need a body shop to
> > rebuild those that are used for target practice.
>
> My next comments are further off topic and out of the scope of Western Pennsylvania, but
> after purchasing a fleet of Flxibles in 1977, a fleet of RTS coahes in 1981 and some
> European built coaches in 1982 that were all failures as far as reliability went,
> Milwaukee County Transit System purchased rebuild kits from General Motors at $20,000 a
> pop and overhauled over one hundred of its newest (1966 & 1967) TDH 5301 diesel coaches.
> It's been over fifteen years (five beyond Federal funding retirement requirements) and
> only now are those buses being retired in earnest. There were over sixty still in use
> last July and they are mixed in service with the newest of coaches on the the system,
> still front line service providers. I wonder if their smaller V-6 power plants and lack
> of air conditioning made them better rebuild candidates due to their relative simplicity.
>
> I do believe it is fair to state if the PCCs and (in those few unique circumstances where
> trolley coach operation remained feisible) trolley coaches still in service during the
> mid 1960s did not have that reserve of longevity within them, there may have been no
> surface traction operations left anywhere in North America by the 1970.
>
> By the way, I wonder how long the Skybus cars would have lasted with proper maintenance
> on the South Hills lines? Ken J.