[PRCo] PRC Car Cards

[Fred Schneider]

I spent parts of three days this week copying and hurriedly digesting
what I could on the Pittsburgh Railways route cards.  What I write her
is not the result of a complete analysis ... just quick and dirty
impressions.  Some day I may get time to go farther with this.  Not
everything was recorded ... these were car s on which schedule, route,
and deviations and interruptions were recorded.  That PRC operating
people found the time to sometimes record car types and the number of
men is a plus even though incomplete.

1.  Trailer operation in Pittsburgh was very common, particularly on the
routes with heavy patronage and relatively (by Pittsburgh terms)
horizontal trackage.  What do I mean by heavy routes?  Highland, Negley,
Lincoln, Frankstown and its predecessor 86 East Liberty), Ardmore,
Glenwood ... could easily add up to half the routes in the city.
Sometime I'll get the ambition to tabulate which routes used trailers (I
probably need to be laid up with surgery to find the time).

2.  Pittsburgh Railways, it appears, was one of the first cities to
convert cars from two-man to one-man operation.  They were doing this in
the 1920s even on relatively heavy routes!

3.  When did the trailers vanish?  Not in all cases, but often the last
day of trailer operation was the day before the first day of full-time
one-man car service.   Because the lower-floor cars were easily
converted to one-man operation, it appears that automobiles and the
low-floor cars which were being delivered in the 1920s eradicated most
of the trailer operation.

4.  Did the route cards show mention of multiple unit operation?  I
looked at everything from the 68 Night car up through 88 Frankstown on
this trip.  (Ed: I might come up at the end of September with Marie and
take time to finish the job.)  The only mention of MU service happened
on route 88 from December 1923 until April 1924.  There is a photo
extant of an MU train in East LIberty on route 88 with a negative number
723-26, which perhaps indicates the year 1926.  There is no guarantee
that all service was recorded on the route cards.  [As an aside, many of
you have seen a picture that PRMA published of a train signed for route
82 ... a publicity photo.  It was not taken on route 82 but on routes 66
and 67 on Forbes Avenue at the east end of Frick Park, just west of S.
Braddock Ave.].  I scanned a little more carefully the cards for route
82 and found no mention at all of MU trains ... one more fake photo
creating an urban legend.

5.  Obviously the conventional wisdom of running trains to save platform
costs vanished as soon as you went to one-man operation.  Once the
conductor was eliminated from the motor car, it mattered naught whether
you had a motor/trailer or two motors running separately, two people
were still required where previously three had been needed.  Which
explains why the railways company often went to one-man cars and pulled
trailers off at the same time if they owned enough motor cars.   As I
said before, there were exceptions.  Route 88 went fully one-man on
October 6, 1930 however there apparently were not enough motor cars to
allow elimination of the trailers.  This happened almost a year later on
August 24, 1931, when 21 motors and 21 trailers in the evening rush were
replaced with 38 motors, and the headway dropped from 3 1/3 to 2 1/2
minutes.  71 Highland's trailers also lasted a year after the 1927
conversion to one-man motor cars.  Note how early these conversions for
for one man cars.  Obviously this also tells us that the double-deck
cars had to be out of service in 1927 because they had no front doors!

6.  I find it also perhaps a testimonial to how weak the unions must
have been in Pittsburgh in the 1920s (before there was an awareness of
the rights of labor and legislation favoring labor which came during the
depression) that PRC could wipe out conductors on some principal routes
as early as 1925.  Here in Lancaster we had conductors on all interurban
cars until the early 1930s.  San Francisco had all two-man cars into the
1950s.  Washington required two-man crews on all conventional cars
(except the PCCs and the ex Providence cars) forever.  Baltimore first
axed conductors in 1930 and then only on the Peter Witts at first.  I
think Manhattan probably always had conductors.  Chicago had them on all
the remaining city lines up to 1958.  Philly still had a few conductors
into the 1970s.  And Pittsburgh Railways gave the extra men a size 12 up
the butt a half-century before that!

Hmmmm?  Did those foul labor relations that PRC had with the union in
the 1950s come from seeds sewn in the 1920s?

And don't ask me for more details now.  No time.