[PRCo] Re: Fwd: Re: Alexander

[Edward H. Lybarger]

Banfield was replaced in 1938, per other message.  The other stop is
"Moninger," in the middle of the length of Grant Street, Houston, south of
the trestle.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
W. Schneider III
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 5:19 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fwd: Re: Alexander



As far as I know, Banfield was active until the end.  It was at the very
north end of Houston, just after the tracks left the street.  It
logically would have also been a Nachod installation but they only
picture I have was from a glass plate in the Washington and Canonsburg
days which show no signals at all.  I imagine W&C used timetable
authority which was very common in the early years (until accidents
changed the way we thought about keeping cars apart).  I cannot see them
removing it.  (And I was dead wrong about placing Banfield on a dirt
street ... I was thinking about Moniker stop, Houston.)

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example had more than 125 miles of suburban
track.  The shortest route was 3 miles long, the longest about 27
miles.  They were all operated on timetable authority into the 1920s.
In 1923 two cars came together head-on north of Ephrata ... a Lancaster
passenger car and a Reading freight motor.  I talked to the then retired
passenger conductor in the 1960s ... he still would set of metal
detectors from the plate in his skull. Two men were killed.  This had a
rather profound affect on thought processes.  Signals were installed on
the busiest lines first, particularly on city routes on which city cars
ran every 6 or 8 minutes in one direction and had to blend in with
suburban cars running in the opposite direction every 30 or 60 minutes.
Next the suburban lines got signals, first starting with sections of
track where cars were running every half hour in each direction.
The significant issue here was the fact that they believed two-men made
an inherently safer operation, and they were unwilling to operate
one-man cars on timetable authority.  I was lucky enough to obtain 40
years ago a list of all signal installation dates and a list of one-man
car dates.  Almost universally, the one-man cars begin running one to
five days after signals were installed!


Jim Holland wrote:
>
> Good Morning!
>
> > "Fred W. Schneider III" wrote:
>
> > It is not a Union Switch and Signal installation.  Nachod signals were
> > used on parts of the line.  US&S signals were used south from Arnold,
> > while Nachods were used northward.
>
> > I never saw a green Nachod aspect in Pittsburgh ... red for opposing
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