[PRCo] Re: FAIR car layups

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Bob et al:

The picture I have was taken by Charles J. Dengler on September 4,
1949.  Three of the cars were PCCs (1441, 1442, and a 1600-interurban. 
The other 14 cars were yellow cars.  All of the service cars had been
removed from Castle Shannon for the duration.

None of this conflicts with what Bob claims; to the contrary, it may
amplify his statements. The eighteen spare cars at Castle Shannon may be
enough to increase the service from 30 minutes to 5 - 6 minutes.  What
Bob remembered stored above South Hills Junction maybe what was needed
to get the headway down to 3 or 4 minutes.   The number of buses in the
Art Ellis picture at Mesta suggests a very, very frequent headway.

It was also my understanding that not all County Fair runs used Tunnel
motormen.  I've been told, I think by Ed Lybarger, that in the week
before the fair MofW crews went out and drove stakes into the ground
ahead of every highway crossing on the interurbans to make life easy for
foreign motormen.  Operators could run flat out from one crossing to the
next stake. Then they could run, for example, a Keating man downtown
with a fair car, white hats downtown would route the man through the
city onto Wood Street, white hats at the tunnel would aim him out the
interurban, etc.  The stranger would simply follow his nose until he got
to Washington Junction where he would be steered out the line toward
Library. 

What about an unqualified man on US&S color light signals? I suspect
that this was less a problem that we might want to believe because the
company used the interurban and the route through Mount Lebanon, each in
one direction only.  This gave them the flexibility of having men muck
up the signal counters, and have a maintainer straighten out the mess
later.  

I know there were system qualified men but I doubt that they would be
wasted on such a maneuver.  Any man qualified everywhere, for example
Roy Taylor, was probably more valuable at that time as supervisory
staff.

It all showed what could be done when it had to be done, and when there
was a profit motive.


Bob Schmidt wrote:
> 
> Good Morning!
> 
> I'm not certain what time period is being discussed here relative to
> County Fair revenue car layup operations, but around the1944-49 era loop
> trackage immediately East of SHJ (Warrington Ave. PRW area), was used
> for car layup assignments for South Park County Fair service.
> 
> The loop held about 18-20 cars which included 3700, 3800, and single-end
> low floor series cars. The year prior to  loop abandonment and burial,
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