Philadelphia PCC retriever for sale on Ebay

[Greg King]

Hi Jim,

You were (if I'm correct) talking about sanding rails etc., how you were
surprised by the motorman sanding the rails on the Muni. I'm very familiar
with the Muni (having been over it a FEW times when I was there) but not so
with Pgh. You were concerned about track circuitry and switch changing etc.

We, I operate modern cars, not unlike Muni and current Pgh in principle
(except ours are foot control like a PCC) and was for many years, an
Instructor on these and our older "conventional" (controllers, air brakes,
the way God intended!) cars when we had them. Can I relate a few things.

As far as track circuitry is concerned, I'm no expert, we don't have that on
the trolleys but, in NSW, on the railroad there, they had a nasty acciden a
few years back when an Interurban rammed the rear of a stalled Steam
passenger fan trip that were using old wood cariages, there was substantial
loss of life and the steam loco, sanding the wet rail was blamed for
interupting the circuit (funny, they never did that when they had steam in
the past and the diesels don't do it either) so all locos (of all types)
that run on the NSW railroads have an extra pipe at the back to blow off
excess sand!!!!

As for trolleys, modern streetcars have "anti-slip/skid" control that
identifies when the car is going to slip and automatically breake
acceleration or braking, drops sand and reinstates same, the motorman on the
Muni, may not have had a say in it!, at any rate, when I trained motorman, I
encouraged the use of sand and still do, when the track is wet, especially
at the start or end of a rain, it is very slippery and those rubber tired
loonies won't give you a break. All our switch contactors are in the track
now but are an Inductor loop and not effected by sand.

One little story I would like to relate, many years ago, I was crossing an
intesection in the city next to a park (this was Autumn, Fall, as you call
it) and a tram going the other way indicated (by punching his fist into his
hand) that an accident had happended down the next stop, as I came over the
top of the intersection (crosses another route and is the top of a hill) I
could see a tram at the next stop, I gentle applied the brakes to go down
hil slowly and the tram took off, I looked at the rails and they were black.
I released the brakes, applied sand and it still skidded, the sand wash
being pushed into the goo! Again I released the brakes (as the rear of the
next car was getting uncomfortably close) and pulled the reverser key and
cut three or four notches, eventual the car slowed to a stop, I then applied
the brakes again and the car held (then I cut the power), I went to look at
the car in front, it was neatly buried into the car infront of it, the
"aggressor" had been out of the shops a week after overhaul! The black rail
of course was, the squashed leaves from the trees in the park, after the
mess was cleared up, the Scrubber spent a couple of happy hours cleaning the
rails, my testimony at the inquiry, saved the motorman his job, he had
already received two broken ankles in the smash!

Boy that was long,
See Ya
Greg