[PRCo] Re: Boarding buses and trains

[Fred W. Schneider III]

The interurban lines apparently had a different kind of supervision ...
the cars had to pass staff at Tunnel, Charleroi, and they left from the
division headquarters in Washington.  They also had telephone contact
with downtown.  Later Washington had on-board phones.

If a man was late, it would have done much good for a supervisor to know
that fact.  There was no other routes from which you could juggle cars
to get things back on schedule.  And if a car arrived late, the
divisions could put another car out at the end of the line.  Don't know
how often they did.  But I have a picture of a bashed in 1700 at
Charleroi ... looked like the brakes failed to work in the space the
motorman allocated for them to work ... apparently he hit the tail gate
of a truck ahead of him on a street.  Behind that 1700 was one somewhat
more pristine.  The passengers were walking back to the second car,
allowing the first to be removed from service.  The motorman had run it
all the way from God knows where to Charleroi with the wind blowing on
his feet through the broken dash, and letting people on and off through
the second front door.    

And what you remember of the interurban lines was simply the pieces of
something that apparently never needed anything.  

Jim Holland wrote:
> 
> Good Morning!!
> 
> > Harold Geissenheimer wrote:
> 
> > Pgh Railways had both departure clocks at the end of the line
> > loops and headway recorders on the throats approaching downtown.
> 
> > The clocks were designed to keep a motorman from leaving early.
> 
>         PRCo had Arrival and Departure clocks on most of the lines.   On the 42-Dormont, the
> arrival clock was outbound nearside Biltmore, no passenger stop.   Inbound, the 42-car
> left the wye and stopped about 2-3 car-lengths down the hill.   I thought it strange to
> make the extra stops rather than include the clocks with a normal stop.
>         Believe it was the same at Clearview loop but here they were integrated with the stops
> --   outbound before making the loop and inbound before leaving it.
>         Don't remember any such things on the interurban lines!   None at all!
> 
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> 
> James B. Holland
> 
> Holland  Electric  Railway  Operation
>     "O"--Scale  St.-Petersburg Trams Company Trolleycars  &
>         "O"--Scale  Parts  mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
>         Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM) http://www.pa-trolley.org/
>     Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
> N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.nmra.org
> 
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