1300's

[John Swindler]

>Jim Holland asked:
>
>Greetings!
>
>Jim didn't say nuttin' about 1300s  --  we were there before  --
>
>	l-o-n-g  before and probably several times before!!-:->)
>
>		Jim asked about.....
>
>			Where's the 3900s?.....
>
>				Where's the 4500s?.....
>
>					Where's the 4600s?.....
>
>						Where's the 5300s???????
>




If I may hazard a guess - with emphasis on guess -  for lack of a better 
phrase, they were car series that never were.  And further, over time, #@%&* 
(stuff) happens.  We have the benefit of perfect 20/20 hindsight.

Without a handy roster, PRC started numbering their new car deliveries at 
3000, with older cars numbered from low 2000s down.  Were they not wooden 
cars at first?

So they got to the 3600s, which just happened to be for interurban service.  
But when first steel car orders arrived, perhaps a decision was made that 
this warranted a new sequence starting at 4000s and 4100s.  Low floor 4200s 
were also steel cars and arrived early.  What came next?  Single end low 
floor cars?  Maybe a block of 500 numbers skipped (for later DE cars, not 
all of which materialized) so that steel single end cars could be kept 
together, starting at 4700.  (can you imagine the conversation:  "gee boss, 
what if the company buys some more steel double end cars?"  "Well, so just 
skip some numbers when you type up the order form.  Two or three hundred 
should do - no, we'll never have more than 500".)

Rather then mingle a small group of interurban cars among the growing ranks 
of low floor city cars, the next interurban car order got the next block 
above the 3600s, or 3700s.  And when you order a group of 20 cars for 
interurban service, do you number them as next group of low-floor steel cars 
or group them with other interurbans?  Maybe just for convenience, PRC ended 
up with a 3750-3769 series, and not a small 5600 series.  So maybe there was 
no "plan" to keep the interurban cars as a group in 3600s-3800s - it just 
happened that way over time.  And thus no 3900s.

Concerning 5300s, were not the 5000s-5200s mu cars?  Maybe a block of 
numbers skipped for additional mu cars that never materialized?  I don't 
know, but it seems like as reasonable an administration reason as any.  Or a 
cancelled order?

Finally, concerning speculation about lack of a 1300 PCC series, bet that is 
nothing more then the administrative whim of one person.  Perhaps someone in 
purchasing.  It didn't stop Washington from ordering PCC cars in 1300 
series, nor did it stop PRC from renumbering predecessor company cars into a 
1300 series in 1903.

Final unimportant speculation is that the experimentals were numbered 
6000-6002.  PRC could have started numbering the PCC cars at 6100 or even 
7000, but again, someone made an administrative decision to start at 1000.

End of idle speculation.

Now back to other stuff, such as the incident were 1023, "running at a fair 
rate of speed between Charleroi and Bellevernon", hit a man "sitting on the 
track, but the car could not be stopped in time to avoid the accident."
"The man paid no attention to the repeated ringings of the gong, and was 
stuck on the head.  He was picked up unconscious and taken to the office of 
the company's physician, Dr. D. E. Sloan in Charleroi."

John


(Jim-try another xerox, this time to PO box?)

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