[PRCo] St.Louis--Car--Company___**Inquiry--Log**

[Jim Holland]

Good Morning!

	Andrew D. Young, who wrote a History about St.Louis Car Company
(SLC,) has shared the following information from an 
*Inquiry--Log*  kept by SLC.   Admittedly, this Log could be
absolutely Nothing More Than Rumor  --  but it also contains cold
hard fact.
	.......But even if the Listed Inquiry is just a Rumor, it was a
Rumor Heard and Recorded By SLC Itself   ---   not a rumor by
railfans some half-century post--SLC!!(:->)

	*Selected*  Inquires for Pittsburgh are listed first.   Then
come notes by Andrew D. Young concerning this Inquiry Log, and
this is followed by  *selected*  inquiries for Baltimore and NY.

	Inquiries 7416 and 7838 certainly fit my  *What--If*  scenario
for PRCo purchasing double-end PCCs to replace similar low-floors
had patronage post-WW2 not declined   ---   at least in 1.48
model form!!(:->)

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For PITTSBURGH, the following entries are logged (inquiries
before 1943 have not been used in this E-mail).

	Inquiry 7384, July 26th, 1943.
		100 PCC cars for 1944 delivery
		(became job 1646 and 1646A).

	Inquiry 7416, April 7th, 1944.
		Price for double-end PCC cars.

	Inquiry 7571, March 1st, 1946.
		13 sets B-3 trucks
		(became inquiry 7592 and job 6305).

	Inquiry 7592, May 15th, 1946.
		10 car sets B-3 trucks
		(became job 6305).

	Inquiry 7613, July 17th, 1946.
		100 PCC cars similar to sample car 1600,
		also with fixed sash.   25 for Interurban
		service, 75 for City service
		(Cancelled, see inquiry 6522 and 7621).

	Inquiry 7621, 7622 September 13th, 1946.
		100 PCC cars (became job 1669)
		and 100 B-3 trucks (became job 6312).

	Inquiry 7838, October 10th, 1949.
		Double-end PCC cars,
		minus M-U feature.



	Given the caveats concerning the use of such documents (and
rightly so) the following PCC inquiries from the Saint Louis Car
inquiry book 1939-1965 now at Washington University Archives,
St.Louis MO.  63130 may be of interest.   I should add some
caveats and observations of my own before you read the
information below.

1.   It is not clear if the notebook is complete.   Some inquries
logged were just trial balloons, some were general inquiries,
some were specific requests for proposals, some were bids that
were made and went to Pullman, some were not ordered at all.

2.   So far, I have always taken these entries at face value as I
have no special inside knowledge of the policies and dynamics of
the bodies responsible for placing these inquiries and orders.  
So if there was more going on behind the scenes than implied by
these entries, I'd be very interested to hear the arguments and
look at the evidence, as I'm certain would almost all the other
participants in this group.

3.   Typically, all inquiries were logged by St.Louis Car Company
and assigned an inquiry number.   Often, the first hint something
was in the wind might be sufficient to trigger St.Louis Car to
assign an inquiry number.   If the inquiry developed into an
order, the order number was generally given in the book (not
always accurately); 1600 or 1700 series for PCC streetcars and
PCC rapid transit cars, 6300 series for PCC trucks and truck
equipment.

4.   Bud Meissner, although in military service at this time,
still spent much of his leaves or off-hours representing St.Louis
Car on behalf of his father.   He spent most of WW2 in the US,
much of it on the east coast, and his father made sure that every
piece of mail that went in or out of the company at this time was
sent to him, so that when Bud meissner made his sporadic visits
to regular customers, he was up to speed with what was needed.  
Equally, he would report back to the Company anything he heard
about further orders being needed (subject of course to
subsequent OWT approval) and it may be that some of the inquiries
logged in the St.Louis inquiry book as not coming directly from
the customer, may have come from Bud Meissner having heard
something credible.

5.   It is not known if Pullman-Standard kept a similar
document.   It is hard to believe that PS would not have done so,
but I am not aware if such a document has ever surfaced.   Has
it?



For BALTIMORE, the following entries are logged.

	Inquiry 6800, June 6th, 1940.
		39 PCCs for October/November
		delivery, also 27 or 22 or 20
		(job went to Pullman-Standard).

	Inquiry 7006, March 25th, 1941.
		25 PCC cars.

	Inquiry 7136, August 25th 1941.
		50 PCC cars.   On this, no official
		inquiry was received directly from
		Baltimore by St.Louis Car, but there
		must have been either a rumor, or some
		third party had made a strong suggestion
		that Baltimore might be in the market
		and so St.Louis Car was positioning
		itself to respond with up-to-date
		figures if any official inquiry were made.

	Inquiry 7440, August 30th, 1944.
		103 PCC cars.
		This is the one that I'm puzzled by-
		surely someone in this group can explain.



For NEW  YORK  BMT, the following entries are logged.

	Inquiry 6656, January 1939.
		500 PCC cars (tentative-deferred).
		That would not fit the time Job order
		1613 was assigned, probably circa
		February-March 1938 (but never used),
		but would fit the persistent rumor
		of 1937/8 that New York was
		planning a 500-car order.

Andrew D.   Young

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James B. Holland

Holland  Electric  Railway  Operation....... 
___"O"--Scale St.-Petersburg Trams Company Trolleycars and...
______"O"--Scale  Parts  mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net

______Pennsylvania Trolley Museum http://www.pa-trolley.org/
___Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.nmra.org

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