[PRCo] Re: So you can't get to Pittsburgh?

[Fred Schneider]

What ifs always make nice arguments.
So let's add one more group of what ifs.  A PCC was a car utilizing patents held
by Transit Research Corporation.  The organization was rolled into Institute for
Rapid Transit, and that later (in a merger with the ATA) became part of the
American Public Transit Association (APTA).  It's no longer an issue of patents
but one of lobbying.  And it is one of lobbying because TRC no longer was able
to earn money on its patents because no new cars were being built and thus no
royalties were generated.

But for a moment, let's assume that cars continued to be built.  Because the PCC
was a modern, up-to-date, mass-produced vehicle ... indeed that was the premise
on which Thomas Conway created the ERPCC ... then I think we need to assume that
if PCCs continued to be built, that they would continually be modernized to meet
the needs of today.

In addition to passenger comfort, we would be attempting to minimize expenses
and maximize revenue per passenger.  This is a concept that may not have been
addressed from day one but it has been part of the equation at least since
1900.  I think, therefore, that the following would have been part of a 2003 PCC
car:

1.   As many seats as possible per employee.  Sounds like articulated cars to
me.  But see item 6.

2.   Chopper controls ... solid state devices don't require the same inspection
time as resistance control schemes.  (You fix it when it breaks instead of
fixing it before it breaks.)

3.   Regenerative braking ... maybe, if we have enough traffic to make the line
receptive.

4.   Flourescent Lighting lasts longer than incandescent bulbs.

5.   AC motors (without brushes) are cheaper to maintain than DC motors.

6.   Fare collection may be addressed as an acknowledgement that honesty does
not work and that buying tickets from machines on the street may be on the way
out.  (Holland, for example, has restored onboard fare collection.)  And this
may cut into the need for articulated cars unless we are willing to have two-man
PCC cars.

7.   Air suspension?  Maybe.  General Motors used it since 1953,  Budd used it
on the Philadelphia area Silverliners 1958.  It does reduce noise transmission.

8.   Plastic seats?  Remember reducing expenses per passenger?

9.   Molded plastic trim panels inside, and maybe even outside.  I suppose.

10. Two headlights?  Certainly.  Automobiles need them.  Trucks do.  Buses
also.  Without even looking, I could imagine that it has part of law in some
states.  Remember also the ditch lights that the FRA requires on locomotives and
self-propelled cars now.

11.  It would need to look modern.  How about that Siemen's Combino?

Sounds like an LRV to me.  How about to you?   I have not addressed operating
speed.  If it was a PCC car and was intended to run on the street, we may be
back to a 40 mph rapidly accelerating vehicle instead of 55 or 60 car with less
rapid get up and go.

And why isn't the Combino or the Siemens U2 or the Adtranz Eurotram acceptable
to railfans?  Maybe they just aren't old enough and threatened yet.  The next
generation will revere them.   But I think they really are the PCCs of today.







Ken & Tracie wrote:

> Jim Holland wrote:
>
> > Actually, have Not ridden the current lrv and  *Never*  would be
> > too soon for me, but the rebuilt Overbrook has definite interest
> > Specifically Because of the History behind it.    Additionally,
> > ({[pat]})  didn't want to rebuild it and denied its value but a
> > significant cut in running time over the current 42/38-line
> > (sorry, don't know current route numbers  AND  am not interested
> > in knowing same!)
>
> On a purely emotional level, we're on the same page, Jim. But one thing I
> have always noted is had the bulk of the streetcar network been retained in
> Pittsburgh (or for that matter ANY of it in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago,
> St. Louis, Kansas City, D.C., Brooklyn, etc.), change would have been
> inevitable. Had reasonably priced PCCs been available through the 1950s and
> into the 1960s, a heck of a lot fewer air-electric cars would have survived
> into the 1980s in the cities that still used PCCs.
>
> Street running in densely traveled areas would have been shifted to subways,
> underutilized parallel railroad corridors, pantographs probably would have
> replaced trolley poles  (except in urban Philadelphia, Toronto &
> Mattapan-Ashmont as well know for sure) and K&M overhead hardware would have
> replaced most of the familar Ohio Brass fittings.
>
> The changes to Pittsburgh's surviving South Hills lines were relatively
> minimal (not counting Early Action) during the 1971-1981 as plans for the
> future were fluid. After losing over three quarters of what was there in mid
> 1964, I believe we were more acutely  aware of what we still had and what
> seemed to be its impending demise.
>
> Had Mr. Swift remained at the helm of PAT from Day One, even a pro-rail
> attitude wouldn't have stopped some of the abandonments, reroutings, changes
> in route designations, etc. It's an unfortunate reality, but we can still
> hold on to our dreams.
>
> K.
>
> P.S.- I wonder if we would have accepted early 1960s models of PCCs with
> dual or quad headlights and slanted "Fishbowl" style side windows? :-)

xx