[PRCo] Re: PRCo's Low-Floor Color Scheme

[Fred Schneider]

Bob Schmidt wrote:

> Greasings,
>
> I recall the Washington cars having the cream/maroon color combination,
> and the Charleroi cars the maroon/gray color scheme. Maybe I've got it
> backwards, but testing a 60 yr.olde memory isn't getting any easier. The
> mind starts retiring with the body. Anyway, that's how I was able to
> distunguish these cars as a trolley obsessed kid back in the mid 40's.

To the best of my knowledge, all cars were scarlet and gray although later
repaints may have used cream instead of gray.  Different paint companies
supplied materials, including Ball and PPG, and there may have been slight
differences not only from paint company but also from paint batch to batch.
One manufacturer described their red as Mountain Ash Scarlet, which,
interestingly enough to me, was the same color name used by Lehigh Valley
Transit Company in Allentown and Bethlehem.  My own mind suggests that the
original lighter color on the PCCs was not a cream but a tan but that might
actually be steel mill dirt.  I'm not proposing to get into any contests
here between two people who import cars from Leonid!  I don't think PRC used
maroon (or anything resembling that dark red) on anything painted after the
middle 1920s although there were maroon cars around as late as the 1940s
(such as the Charleroi line car).

Also no difference in car assignments.  There is a strong conviction of
current day railfans that the 3800s were restricted to Charleroi and the
3700s to Washington but this simply isn't true.  Company records show they
mixed them up.  Available photos also show both groups ran on both lines in
scheduled service.  What might have happened, and this I cannot confirm, was
that Charleroi Car House's assigned cars were 3800s and Tylerdale might have
been assigned 3700s for the sake of parts simplicity, but that still left
more than half the fleet at Castle Shannon or Tunnel and their assignments
by routes certainly were mixed.   The interurban barns may not have even had
parts stocks for their assigned cars as I'm been told that the assigned cars
were rotated into Tunnel every other evening for maintenance.

>
>
> As an additional note or two, I believe the 3700 series used a pointed
> pilot, and the 3800's a traditional vertical fence gate...(my
> politically incorrect description of a rail kill wiper.)
> And...Both series had different style truck side frames ...the 3700's
> using archbars...the 3800's a variation of the archbar design with
> rounded journal boxes.

Pilots and trucks were essentially the same.  The 3800s had roller bearing
journals while the 3700s had friction bearings, hance the difference in the
journal cases.

>
>
> Eh, just a nickles worth of thoughts to share on these olde romantic
> beasts, and hoping to be somewhere near halfway accurate after all these
> years.
>
> Bob S.