[PRCo] Re: Tunnel CH

[Fred Schneider]

To the group:  This dialog started when Boris attached a PRC picture of
Tunnel Carhouse that I had taken, and asked about doors on Tunnel
Carhouse.  Thought some of the rest of you might find some of it
interesting.  And Happy Easter to all of you.  By the way, I'm putting
off processing the church collection.
You just don't understand the concept!  Doors cost money.  If the
workers get frost bitten fingers you simply hire replacement workers.

I'm not trying to sound sarcastic.  This was the way management
thought.  This was also one of the reasons behind the development of
labor unions in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Some workers didn't even have a roof.  Pacific Electric Railway did
routine operating repairs on PCC cars and the 5050 class, and before
that the 800s, at Toluca Yards just outside the Hollywood subway
tunnel.  The place had a pit.  What did they do when it rained?  The
help got wet.  How about those heavy spring rains in southern California
that are driven horizontally by the winds?  Well, productivity
suffered.  The help huddled around a stove in a shed.  I recall that
Boston's Cleveland Circle car house had doors when I first saw it in the
1950s but I also remember thinking how unusual that was.  I don't
remember doors at any Pittsburgh car house.  Nor do I remember doors on
any Philadelphia barn.

Some rudimentary effort may have been made to keep workers warm.  Some
Philadelphia facilities had a separate shop track with doors and heat.
Some companies may have put radiant or resistance heaters in the pits to
change them from downright miserable and bone numbing  to simply cold.

Companies in the United States believed that the investors and managers
came first.  Wage employees were expendable property that could be
replaced if they did something wrong.  This was particularly true during
the period of massive European immigration.  The earliest documentation
I've seen of any company providing benefits, as we know them, was an
announcement by R. P. Johnson, President, Lehigh Valley Transit Co., on
July 4, 1913 that is company would not provide company paid insurance,
sick benefits and pensions and a $200 death benefit.  The company
offered $1.00 a day when sick, medical and surgical benefits "under
certain conditions," and a $20 monthly retirement benefit after 25 years
service.  To put this all into perspective, the national average
compensation for wage employees in 1911 (according to the U. S. Census
of Electric Railways) was $674.26, which breaks down to $56.18 a month
of $2.16 a day if we assume a six day workweek.  Because wages in the
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area were significantly below the stational
average at that time, they were offering about 50% of salary on
retirement and 50% a day for sick leave.  But remember that this was
highly unusual at time and I suspect warranted a lot of hate mail to
Johnson from the presidents of other traction companies.  Ron DeGraw
told me that his father, a Philadelphia and Western motorman, received
no benefits until after World War II.  Vacations?  You got to be
kidding.  And if you have enough saved up to be able to do it on your
own, you don't belong here.  Unemployment insurance?  That came out of
the creation of the federal-state employment service by the
Wagner-Peyser Act in 1938.

Back to doors.  In Pittsburgh, the Manchester, Homewood, and Tunnel
general overhaul shops had doors.  Kensington in Philly had doors.  Most
overhaul shops in the north had doors.  I think even Pacific Electric
put doors on the Torrance Shop in southern California.

Satisfactory?

fws



Boris Cefer wrote:

>  I cannot imagine replacing small parts such as contacts at about 5F.
> Did they use an acetylene burner to keep fingers warm??? You cannot do
> such jobs with mittens on your hands!
> From: Fred Schneider
>  They added doors after it became an overhaul shop.
>
> Lack of doors on car houses was anything but unusual.  You just
> dressed warmly in the winter.  Overhaul shop buildings often had doors
> because cars would stay inside for hours.  Carbarns generally either
> didn't have them or they were not kept closed because openening and
> closing them would be more of a chore than freezing.  Applies to many
> northern cities and virtually all southern US cities.
>
> Boris Cefer wrote:
>
>> Hi, Fred! Do you remember any doors on Tunnel carhouse buildings
>> (barn)? The photo doesn't seem to show any. It had to be tremendous
>> to work there in winters. Boris
>