West Penn 832

[Fred W. Schneider III]

I know West Penn painted the car about 1948-1950.  I also know that, within a
year or two, the tops of the side sheets were rusting from under the belt rail.
That gave me a strong clue why Baginsky and company started the rebuilding
program.  Remember that the car came to Arden in 1954 and sat outside without
attention for several years.

I remember looking at the flanges, and noticed that they were square ... no
approximation of  normal wheel profile.  It is possible that West Penn turned
them that way to help prevent nosing at speed but I doubt that speeds in South
Connellsville were high enough for that  to be an issue.  I remember mentioning
the flanges to someone who remembered being on the trip from Charleroi to
Ingram.  The story related to me was that, after the trip John Baxter, the
motorman and PERC member, looked at the flanges, and remarked that had he looked
first, he would not have been running as fast as he did.  So apparently John
wasn't too impressed either.

Remember Ed Lybarger's comments that West Penn knew in 1930 that they were going
out of business.  That makes it pretty obvious that West Penn wasn't going to
spend an inordinate amount of cash on anything.

When the Allegheny Valley Street Railway shutdown in 1937, the 800s had between
457,000 and 477,000 miles of service.  Car 832 had  460,984 miles of service when
AVSRy closed.   Even if it only ran every other day from then until 1952, it
would have gone out of service with nearly 800,000 miles ... knowing that it had
heavy service until 1945, I suspect it had very close to 1 million miles of
service.  The duty of the railways management was to pass as much of the
dividends from West Penn Power Co. through the pipe to the holding company in New
York, i.e. West Penn Electric Co., as possible.

With these facts in mind, how would you describe the mechanical condition of
832?  Even if it had new steel, how many miles do you think it could run without
a major motor / compressor / grearbox / wiring overhaul?

Hint: Have you flown Balkan Airlines (to Bulgaria) lately?

Hint:  There were some companies like Los Angeles Transit Lines (NCL mind you),
St. Louis Public Service (also NCL, how about that), Twin City Rapid Transit,
Capital Transit Co. (DC Transit) that had impeccable reputations for
maintenance.  But West Penn simply didn't throw money down a rat hole.



Fredbruhn at aol.com wrote:

> I was under the impression that 832 was the last curved side car shopped at
> Connellsville and is why the museum picked it.  When Fred Schneider says it
> was in horrid shape when it arrived it makes me think I am totally off base.
> Did the PERC have other choices on cars from WP?
>
> I do remember that the sheet metal was bad enough that John Baginsky, plus I
> assume others, torn the car down to the frame, and that must have been 30
> years ago.
>
> As museums go, I will give PTM a thumbs up for the decisions the founders and
> directors have  taken on car acquisitions.  Remember in the beginning many of
> the cars came via private sourcing, e.x. Dick Boker 1138, Brown's 3756, and I
> am sure personal preference played a role.
>
> If you want to see the no focus, shotgun approach to museum management, check
> out ORM in Columbus or NORM in Cleveland.  Everything from dead steam engines
> to CTA 4000's, mostly stored outside.  Get everything you can, we'll worry
> about
> storing and restoring some time in the future.   The founders at NORM are all
> dedicated people, but looking at TTC (ex Cleveland) PCC's, Shaker (I presume
> ex
> St. Louis) PCC's, a TTC small Witt, a PRCo. 1600, Airporter's from the
> original CTS'
> rapid, a NOT&L shell, and others all outside with minimal protection, did
> they need
> 4000's just because they were available.   The vandals have been terrible,
> and mother nature does here work too.
>
> Fred