Ken's question about Eastern European PCCs

[John F Bromley]

You'll be happy to know that Magdeburg's track is now almost on a par with
western Germany, as witnessed personally last September.  After all, we
can't shake those nice new low-floors to bits, can we?

Most Konstal cars, based on the hundreds of slides/photos I've acquired,
continue to be paired in numerical sequence, although the Warsaw cars
numbered lower than 500 are mixed and matched.

If you want Spaghetti trackage you have only to cross the border into any
former USSR country, and the more backwater town it is the curvier the
Spaghetti.  I have some video from Joachim Kaddatz (actually several) and
some of his max tely-tripod mounted views looking straight down a
reservation or PRW would make you wish you'd stolen the airsick bags from
your flight (not just yours, ALL of them).  Places like Moscow are not so
bad, comparatively speaking, but elsewhere.....makes me want to hurl just
thinking of them.  That's not prejudice - just typical USSR etc.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred W. Schneider III" <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: Ken's question about Eastern European PCCs


> It's an OK subject, its PCCs.
>
> Ken, I photographed Tatra cars in almost every city in East Germany
> before the wall came down, and in several cities after reunification. I
> also had a one-day dash through Czechoslovakia stopping briefly in
> Prague, Brno, and one other city.(Understand I'm the typical American
> tourist ... rent a car to drive and photograph public transit.)  I rode
> and photographed the Konstal cars in Warsaw and Krakov, both in Poland.
> (That was an all railroad trip, made possible because a one week
> all-Poland unlimited rail pass was only about US$30 and western rental
> car companies did not then and still refuse to allow their cars being
> taken into the East.)  I've also ridden on Tatra cars in Sofia,
> Bulgaria.
>
> What were they like ... the standard gauge cars in Poland and East
> Berlin rode on B3 trucks; the rode like any Pittsburgh low 1700.
> Nothing significantly different if maintained properly.
>
> The truth was that while per capita patronage in the Eastern Bloc
> Countries was incredibly high by developed world standards, fares were
> incredibly low (like subsidized housing, bread and milk), and therefore
> on a limited budget maintenance was fair to middlin at best, and went
> downward to deplorable, then awesome, and finally to you ain't gonna
> believe it not matter what I say.  I remember one section of track
> through an industrial sector in Magdeburg that looked like an applied
> perturbation test track at Pueblo; the cars rocked and bounced through
> it like an athlete on a surfboard.  Gearbox maintenance ranged from we
> recently fixed it down to we got 500,000 more kilometers than the law
> allows ... some cars were terribly noisy but it wasn't a manufacturing
> defect.  Journal and motor bearings would squeal until they seized.
>
> The Bulgarians were the worse of all.  They seemed to have a policy of
> not fixing anything until it quit altogether.  We landed at the airport
> in Sofia to find half the light bulbs in the terminal were burnt out.
> Hotels were the same ... you'd go down the hall and 2 or 3 bulbs out of
> 5 would be out (in a random pattern suggesting bulb failure instead of
> saving current). One of the group was given a hotel room in Sofia's
> finest hotel that had a broken water faucet with hot water gushing out
> like Old Faithful.  The room was like a sauna.  And they chose to make
> no attempt to rectify the problem until the tour guide demand it in the
> local tongue.  The country's one streetcar system ran on similar
> principals, although most cars were nicely painted and maintenance was a
> tad better than the Polish systems I visited.
>
> I made a statement in the PCC book series about performance matching of
> PCCs in Poland into two-car trains and then permanently coupling them.
> I was told that but I had no proof when I wrote the PCC book.  I later
> received a piece of hate mail from someone who thought I was taking an
> undeserved poke at the Poles.  Guess what folks.  It was true.   The
> cars were matched in permanent pairs according to performance. And then
> all the excess hardware (headlights on the second cars, for example) was
> removed.  In addition, the doors on the Konstal cars would not close if
> opened all the way because the track and/or guide rollers were
> improperly positioned.  The solution was to put a bolt through the floor
> to permanently block all doors so they would not open all the way ...
> prevented them from jamming.  And, if anyone wants proof, I'll dig out
> the color slide.
>
> And was I picking on the Poles?  No.  I've found that people can be
> incredibly nice no matter where I've gone.  Poland was no exception.
> Before I left, I spent a day in New York, as is often my custom,
> wandering around all the national tourist offices.  I was thinking of
> the "East" for that summer.  I met two absolutely lovely women from
> Intourist but after interrogating them for a half hour, I concluded that
> Russia would be postponed.  The Czechoslovakian tourist office had been
> privatized; its goal was to sell rooms and tours and one received all
> the services one expects from New Yorkers.  But the lady in the Polish
> office was supreme.  She knew everything.  Even the main train schedule
> was memorized.  And it wasn't even a tourist office, just the office of
> their national hotel chain.  The Polish tourist office is in Chicago.
> Her answer to my compliment about her knowledge was, "This is the only
> office in New York.  Someone should represent Poland.  People here
> should not be referred to Chicago."  That convinced me.  I had a lovely
> evening at a Chopin recital in Warsaw.  A very memorable time listening
> to a guide in Auchwitz trying to tell an American tourist that "the
> tourist's" about the Nazi camp were total incorrect ... a rather loud
> argument ... until the man from New Jersey pointed out that he escaped
> from Auschwitz in 1945.  Sadly, I don't speak Polish so I only met those
> people whose business was tourism. Yet I do want to return.  I do much
> better in Germany.  And France was great because my wife understands and
> speaks French (I only read a little of it).
>
> Kenneth Josephson wrote:
> >
> > "Fred W. Schneider III" wrote:
> >
> > > The sad thing about the concocted story about the 1800s is that
someone
> > > out there no doubt won't realize the humor and it will circulate as
> > > gospel for years and years and years.
> >
> > Ah, but not as sad as being misquoted in print or being credited with an
> > inaccurate writing. How do you recall five thousand books?
> >
> > >  But it was funny.  Even at o'dark
> > > 30 in the morning.
> >
> > Thanks. I know of a guy who restored a '61 Impala convertible with a Bel
Air
> > trink lid (two less tail light openings), Bel Air trim & interior. No
such
> > beast as a '61 Bel Air convertible. He loves to park it at car shows and
> > listen to the know-it-alls spout production figures for this
non-existent
> > Chevrolet model or who claim they once owned one. He always manages to
keep
> > a straight face, too.
> >
> > > At any rate, I liked the tale about the 1800s.  Just what Pittsburgh
> > > needed ... another batch of stinking hot cars with no opening windows
in
> > > the summer.
> >
> > Regardless of humidity levels, moving hot air is won't really do much to
> > cool people in a crowded streetcar. Here in the high desert, evaporative
> > coolers can drop inside temperatures thirty degrees. And a dry eighty
> > degrees feels much better than a dry one hundred ten. But a refrigerated
> > seventy degrees feels best of all!
> >
> > Remember those Dallas trolley coaches with the air conditioning? Those
units
> > were virtually indentical to the older rooftop A/C units still seen in
older
> > parts of Las Vegas. Of course, the trolley units carried direct current
> > motors, but I wonder how well they worked?  How comfortable was DC's air
> > conditoned PCC? Or Pittsburgh lone 4000 with A/C?
> >
> > > The reality is, St. Louis was more than happy to build more PCC cars
and
> > > many companies did check out prices.  Pittsburgh did know into the
> > > middle 1950s what they would have cost had they bought them.  It
seemed
> > > that $20,000 40 foot GM buses always won out over a $40,000 steetcar.
> > > The argument was that those buses would not last long, but old look
> > > buses managed to run 20 years or into the public agency era too.  Some
> > > of the 1,000 coaches that Philly bought in 1955-57 were still around
in
> > > the early 1980s, I rode them that late.
> >
> > Milwaukee's newest Old Looks (1958)  were estimated to have another five
> > years of service life left when the County retired them in the early
1980s.
> > LA gave serious consideration to buying the best ones. The County press
> > release stated these "old friends" had plenty of miles left to offer,
but no
> > ridership appeal. As if the RTS (rattle trap s**t) coaches replacing
them
> > were any nicer. The Old Look was a tight, well built machine by the end
of
> > its production run.
> >
> > One has to wonder how well an Eastern European PCC would have held up in
> > Pittsburgh in comparison to PAT's current fleet. If Derrick allows, I'd
love
> > to have some of the list members who have ridden these cars in the
former
> > Soviet Union share their impressions. Ken J.