[PRCo] Re: Tunnel CH

[Fred Schneider]

A quite acceptable viewpoint.  I think I cited a book "Keystone of
Democracy, A History of Pennsylvania Workers" in an e-mail last week.  It
also shows that that was acceptable behavior for workers in 1800 was taken
away by the courts in the 1820s - 1840s, including the right for workers to
gather together for the purpose of obtaining better working conditions.
Your grandpa and father were entrepreneurs and had the right to tell the
peons to get cold and wet ... even if they were the peons.  Enclosing that
lift wasn't cheap.
There was still a filling station in downtown Lancaster in the 1960s that
had an outdoor lube rack.  It had no lift but used a steel ramp up to the
level platform.  I suspect what might have done in that sort of rack, beside
the cold, weas the same thing that eradicated the drive-on lifts, and that
might have been a proliferation of cars in the 1970s that had a different
track or wheel gauge (whatever the word was).

"Dietrich, Robert J." wrote:

> My grandfather opened a gas station on Mt. Washington in (I think) 1929.
> it had one of those new-fangled hydraulic lifts  - outside in the cold
> and rain.  When my Dad got into the business, after the war, he put in a
> new lift inside a garage and as a teenager I spent considerable time
> under that lift.  On rainy/snowy days o would turn on the heat and wait
> as long as possible - that is until Dad forced me - before going under a
> wet cold car to change the oil.  I could just imagine what it would be
> like under an outdoor lift.
>
> My point there is that it wasn't always management/worker relationships
> that dictated working conditions.  My Grandfather probably got under the
> cars as often as anyone.  It was more the case that that's the way it
> was.  Lifts were installed outside and that is where you worked and if
> you didn't like you worked somewhere else.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of John
> Swindler
> Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 10:00 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Tunnel CH
>
> Not just carbarns lacked doors.  Homestead Works of US Steel was cold in
>
> winter, hot in summer, according to my father.  Most buildings had open
> doorways, which just made it easier for moving "stuff", to different
> parts
> of the mill.  Eliminates opening/closing doors, and eliminates
> opportunity
> for truck drivers and train crews to plow through a closed door.  But
> employees generally worked in middle - or far end of mill building.  The
>
> area closer to doorways - at least from a summer spent at 160" mill many
>
> years ago - tended to be storage areas.
>
> And maybe that somewhat explains lack of doors at carbarns, even in
> northern
> climates.  Security wasn't that strong of an issue.  They were just
> large
> "sheds" to keep part of fleet out of elements.
>
> So what about Homewood Shops??  Did the shop area have doors, or was it
> open??  And how much maintenance space was needed at Tunnel in earlier
> years???  (Opps, I see that Fred has already answered this question)
>
> Beyond that, Fred has a valid observation on working conditions and
> labor-management relations (or lack thereof).  It's difficult to realize
> the
> way things were just a couple generations ago.  From reading old
> newspapers,
> the railroads seemed to be a particularly brutal place to work for
> injuries
> and fatalities.
>
> John
>
> >From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> >Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >To: Boris Cefer <boris6 at volny.cz>, pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >Subject: [PRCo] Re: Tunnel CH
> >Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 14:04:39 -0400
> >
> >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
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
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