[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh PCCs

[Fred Schneider]

The Philadelphia plan to rebuilt 18 PCCs to run on a reactivated route 15
Girard can be described as political, or social engineering, or perhaps a
very disastrous mistake using someone else's (i.e. Federal) money.  The far
northeast end of the line has some potential for a bus line  ... it serves
a rather blighted area called Kensington.  The rest of route 15 serves the
some rather grisley areas. The kind that are best served by surrounding it
with a hurricane fence topped with concertina wire.   I can only wait until
SEPTA ultimately brings in all the politicians to show them what was
accomplished, and these men and women view a recreated trolley line passing
block after block of boarded up houses.  Why am I so cynical you ask?  I
drove along it two days ago to look at the construction.

I'm recalling a story from a SEPTA engineer who was at Callowhill carhouse
about 1980 when the new Kawasaki cars were being delivered and who
witnessed a killing right in front of his eyes ... possibly a drug deal
gone sour.  And going back to the same time, I remember wanting to do an
audit on the West Philadelphia state employment office, which was then at
49th and Lancaster Avenue.  Our WIN program manager (a very fine
African-american LADY ... people of any race don't come any better than
her) told me that she would go there with me, but only if I drove her in
and drove her back out.  She wasn't about to park her car there nor wait
for a route 10 trolley in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city.  It
was an experience for me too.  That office had three armed guards, and they
were unable to prevent two employees from being mugged right in the office
in the span of one year!    Sounds to me like a very nice area for a
tourist trolley!  If you want to get rid of your tourists.

I heard on Friday that Brookdale Locomotive may be trying to welch out on
the rebuild contract, or talk SEPTA out of more money.  They have
apparently complained that the cars are in far worse shape than they
imagined and that they are unable to do the job for the quoted price.   The
other side of the coin is that they were given a junk car to strip down to
see how bad it was before bidding ... and they knew that the roof carlines
were all rusted away from the side posts, and that the side posts were
rusted from the side sills, and so forth.  I was also told that their bid
was high enough to build 18 new bodies if necessary.  So it may be that
Brookdale either sees a cash cow or is fed up with dealing with SEPTA.   I
refuse to disclose my sources of information, suffice to sayt that both are
in the rail car industry and neither have a personal axe to grind.

Can the line be profitable in any way?  Or rather can in earn enough
revenue to make a trolley more practical than a bus?  Remember, we're
talking 18 cars.  In the old days (private industry) that would be 16 to 17
active in the rush and 1 to 2 spares.  Today the numbers are probably more
like 10 running and 8 idle.  The route is about eight miles long ...
roughly a car every two miles with the others on recovery time at the
ends.  In the rush hour, that is probably about a 10 to 12 minute
headway.   Under private enterprise, the threshold of profitability for a
trolley was every 5 minutes or more often.  Diesel buses were useful if you
ran them every 10 minutes or less often.    Clearly, if you are to amortize
all costs out of the farebox the line can't make a profitable return.  But,
in an era where we use state and federal money for as much as 90 percent of
capital costs, it doesn't matter if we run a trolley, does it?

It will be interesting to read what Harold Geissenheimer or Ed Tennyson
posts in response.  Your turn...

Fred Schneider

Matt Barry wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I came across this year-old article by accident today.  I don't recall
> its being discussed on the list.
>
> http://www.post-gazette.com/transportation/20020127gratacoltrans2p3.asp
>
> Matt

fws