[PRCo] Reading List

[Fred Schneider]

This letter was sent to some of the management staff at PTM ... thought
some of you might also like these literary recommendations.
One book which has subject matter relevant to what we think or operators
should understand, and maybe we wish to convey this to them.   Might be
something we also want to recommend in Trolley Fare.  Check also with Ed
Lybarger for his feelings ... he also read the book:

Jonnes, Jill:  Empires of Light,  Random House, New York, copywrite
2003.   ISBN 0-375-50739-6.  Subject is the development of direct
current, light bulbs, DC motors, alternating current, induction motors.
Story essentially ends with the completion of the first AC generating
station at Niagara Falls in 1896, and the conversion of the Buffalo
streetcar system to commercial power from the Falls in the same year.
Essentially a chronology of the work of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla,
George Westinghouse and the formation of General Electric and
Westinghouse organizations.  Some interesting traction names crop up:
Sam Insull, a treasurer for Edison, August Belmont of the New York
Railways and Interborough Rapid Transit ... a financial savior of
Westinghouse, Charles Coffin of Thomson Houston ... remember the Coffin
interurban speed trophies; and H. M. Byllesby, originally with Edison
and later with Westinghouse ... this was the man who later formed an
engineering company that managed Pittsburgh Railways for many years.
The last chapter briefly documents the lives of Tesla, Westinghouse and
Edison after the bankers wrested control of their companies away for
them!

Why is it important?  Remember that the electric utilities and the
railways were often the same companies ...  Duquesne Light/Equitable
Gas/Pittsburgh Railways/the Philadelphia Company ... West Penn Electric
Co. / West Penn Railways / West Penn Power / Monongahela Power /
Monongahela West Penn Public Service / Potomac Edison Co. / Hagerstown &
Frederick Railway / Chambersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro Elec. Ry. /
Wheeling Traction ..... General Electric / Electric Bond and Share /
Pennsylvania Power and Light Co. / and the trolleys in Lancaster,
Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Williamsport, Jersey Shore and in about 18
other states and 2 foreign countries .....  PennElec was affiliated with
Altoona & Logan Valley .... York Railways was the owner of the local
power company and in the 1930s was affiliated with Sam Insull's
Middlewest Utilities Corporation and Chicago Rapid Transit, the North
Shore, the South Shore and the CA&E and finally the Indiana Railroad.
This, of course is only a sampling.  Many of the small railways also
sold power.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What I'm reading now .... interesting and as I get deeper into it there
will be relationships to railway labor issues ... slow reading like a
college text book ... but very interesting to be:

Harris, Howard, editor, Keystone of Democracy, A History of Pennsylvania
Workers, copywrite 1999 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and available at the state
museum in Harrisburg.  ISBN 0-89271-084-5.  Publication may also be
available at some of the other state museums.  A chronology of the
composition and structure and issues of labor in the Commonwealth and
prior to that in the British Colony of Pennsylvania