[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh Book

[Harold Geissenheimer]

Greetings to all

It was interesting to review Tom's professional career.  He has contributed
a great deal to our industry and our avocation.  I have known him since the1960's
and now Vancouver.  He has introduced many new suggestions and has always
worked to advance electric railways and rapid transit.  His has not been a back-seat
driver.  His suggestions about future publications are interesting.

Like Bob Brown, he has supported the Arden museum.  He is a friend.

Harold Geissenheimer

tompark at interchange.ubc.ca wrote:

> I appreciate the kind words on this list about my 1967 Pittsburgh streetcar booklet - although less so the comments about photocopying it when it can still be bought from, and support the PTM, as can the excellent map.
>
> I started my traction career in 1960 as a student apprentice on the 3rd rail underground electric system in Liverpool while doing a degree in electric power (read traction) engineering. My only call to fame, then and now, being that I lived in the same house as John Lennon for three months.The job I was due to start on graduating, with British Railway's electric traction department, failed to materialise because of the pending Beeching cutbacks The only traction job I was offered was by an on-campus recruiter from Westinghouse Electric. In the early sixties engineers were at a premium. I interviewed for seven jobs and was offered six!
>
> Westinghouse smoothed the way for a green card and flew me to Pittsburgh. They found me accommodation in a rooming house in Wilkinsburgh, put me through their graduate school and a master's degree at Pitt. At the same time having me work on the NYCTA's R33 cars and the development of a computer program for train performance and sub-station location -- still well used as the Carnegie-Mellon Train Performance Program. I also spent much time on the development of the Transit Expressway system at its South Park test track. I worked for and under old traction engineers who had cut their teeth - and paid their bills through the dirty thirties - developing the PCC car and the GG1. With Bill Bowers, Gene Pastoret and Bill Walker I learnt more in my time in Pittsburgh than I had ever done before or have since.
>
> I was not much of a fan, but riding PCCs every day from Wilkinsburgh to East Pittsburgh soon changed that, and I made good use of Sunday passes to explore the system and city. I did not have a car and cannot remember who drove me to Arden for the first time in late 1962. Things took their course and I managed to get Westinghouse to donate components and designed a crude diode sub-station for Arden, then made it to President for two years - pretty much by default.
>
> The extent of the Pittsburgh system amazed me. Here was one of the world's great traction systems, still mainly intact, and little had been written about it. It made the other large (and mainly flat) networks in Toronto, Philadelphia, Melbourne, Leningrad, Budapest, Prague and the Ruhr look boring. Discussions with the late Jack Wyse resulted in a series of articles in Modern Tramway and the booklet reprint. Attempts to get help in writing a full book did not materialise. One PRMA member, Peter Weiglen said he would take it on and took my notes and a lot of background material before dropping out-of-sight. I never did get anything back.
>
> Pittsburgh streetcars need and deserve a comprehensive book, probably several volumes, not a photo album with extended captions. Ed Lybarger has a manuscript, PTM has a map, roster and a wealth of other information, but properly done there has to be socio-economic and political backgrounds, plus life added with anecdotes about the people who worked for and rode PRCo. No one person can do it. No one can make money on it.
>
> In the last few years I have written a book on "Rail Transit Capacity" and contributed to the transit chapters of the 2001 "Highway Capacity Manual". The thought of a book controlled and written by a committee does not appeal, but the ease of desktop publishing and collaboration through the Internet is changing this. The HCM work went very well.
>
> Last year I bought my first book on CD, related to my other hobby of collecting and restoring old cameras. (Very therapeutic when in the middle of writing yet another specification for subway or light rail vehicles or systems.) I do not like reading on a computer but this book would have cost over $200 if published conventionally, rather than the $50 on CD - and would not have had as many colour illustrations. Further the author is accepting corrections and additional material and plans $20 updates every few years. In the modest volumes of specialised publishing, the CD, jewel case and colour wrapper cost about $2 total. The up-front costs of conventional publishing, say 2,000 at over $100 each, would have killed this book before it got off the ground.
>
> A CD book can inexpensively have a wonderful array of scanned in appendices - maps, rosters, reports, rule books, and timetables. A comprehensive history of local transportation in the Pittsburgh area should surely be eligible for grants from a variety of sources, enough to hire researchers and get the grunt work done.  Perfection cannot be expected but could evolve in time. It needs a committee of experienced, dedicated (and unpaid) enthusiasts. I think all that are needed are on this discussion group. Who will lead the way?
>
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> Tom Parkinson Vancouver BC Canada
> Tel 604 733-5430      fax 604 733-5437
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