[PRCo] Re: West End

[Fred W. Schneider III]

I'm loathe to jump into something about which I know nothing but here
goes.  I have a couple of pictures but all the concrete data is
elsewhere.  There was an eastbound to southbound curve at Carson and
Smithfield about 1952 but no north to west curve. I have a Vigrass
negative in my hand that veries that.  This indicates that cars going
into service from Tunnel onto route 32 had to cross over from the
northbound track through the tunnel to the southbound track somewhere. 
I don't remember a crossover near the mouth of the tunnel ... screwing
around on a 6% grade is for the birds.  Therefore logically cars going
into service on 32 ran through the intersection, then crossed over in
front of the P&LE station, and then turned from southbound to westbound
at Carson St.  Cars going out of service simply took the track from
eastbound on Carson to southbound into the tunnel.  In my memory, that
intersection was one curve short of a grand union, but I'm not going to
stand on that statement.   

But what about the Sewickley cars.  Possibly cars going into service ran
over the Smithfield St. Bridge into Pittsburgh, then back out over the
Point Bridge.  Returning cars could run through town also, or run empty
over Carson St.  There may also have been another curve from northbound
on Smithfield to westbound on Carson when 23 was running.  

The answers are there Jim.  It is just a matter of time to research
everything.  The track records (at least the early ones are at Arden). 
The car barn assignments are also on the route cards ... I don't have
copies of everything at home.  I probably have route 32 / 33 but don't
have time tonight to look for it.  We also have railfan pictures of
3750s at Tunnel bearing Sewickley signs.  It is no rumor.    

Certainly assigning the all the 3750s to Tunnel makes sense.  Why
doesn't it?  PRC assigned cars according to apparatus in a transparent
policy of simplifying parts inventories.  The sole exception, both with
PCC cars and older equipment, were cars based at Homewood, where parts
were not an issue because the central parts room was a block down the
street.  Why would you give Ingram ten cars different from anything
else?  Ingram generally had GE PCC cars of the 1500 series (25 cars),
half of the GE 1700s, 5200 MU cars which had HL control, 4200 cars with
HL control for Thornberg shuttle.  The 3750s were similar to the 5200s
but they had higher speed gearing ... that and some other parts may have
been the reason PRC wanted them all kept in one place.  The 3750s may
also have been kept at Tunnel because the company needed the extra
trackage at Ingram for the scrapping program. We may not know why
everything was done, but you can be damn sure the result was well
reasoned.

Privately-owned public transit companies generally were most logical. 
For someone brought up in the era of government ownership, it isn't
always easy however to follow the logic of making money.  That is not an
insult Jim after all your years with Muni.  I saw it in 36 years in
government myself ... the people around me never knew how to think
dollars, only how to cover their asses with paper.  

Jim Holland wrote:
> 
> Good Morning!
> 
> >> Jim Holland commented:
> 
> >> Good Morning!
> 
> >> http://davesrailpix.railfan.net/pitts/htm/bvp003.htm - shows the X-over on
> >> the Smithfield St. Bridge which the 32-line cars used for getting into and
> >> out of the barn.
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