[PRCo] Re: I was in USA!

[Boris Cefer]

Fred Schneider wrote:
>>1.  I'm sorry that you could remember what you didn't like on 1138 and 1711 but you were unable to remember or >>observe how much new steel that Adtranz put into those cars. 

I don't know exactly the shape of 1711 before the repair at ADtranz, but my opinion is that they didn't do some jobs that they surely should do.

>>Because of health and safety issues, I believe they were told to stay away from the equipment cases.

Asbestos is not too dangerous as you want to suggest to us. With some safety provisions, you can handle it very safely, especially when you don't produce large clouds of asbestos powder.

>>It is also unfair to complain about PRC maintenance because the car was not removed from active service and sold to PRC.  

I could be wrong.  Sold to PRC???
But at least the standard of body repair jobs showed that PRCo didn't care much about appearance. Many cars were rusted or the paint was worn and when a new paint was applied, it was put directly on a rough body. This makes me think that only the basic function of equipment was necessary to make profit as high as possible.

2.  I fail to see the logic in your statement about the B-2bs until you got to the last statement.  Did you ask Bruce Wells or anyone in charge in the 1960s and 1970s for the history of those trucks or are you simply speculating?  Could they have come off the GE 1700s that were retired in 1967?    Did some 1700s get B-2 trucks from scrapped 1600s or 1500s?  (Both the 1500s and 1600s had blown motors.)   I think you need to ask and find answers to a lot more questions before reaching any conclusions.  For what it is worth, I did observe many cars with B-2B trucks in the early 1980s.  I pin point the dates because I had finished the PCC books at that time and understood what such a truck was.  I doubted the earlier comments on this site but I had no proof that they changed or didn't change anything so I stayed in the background.  But I find it preposterous that several rusting trucks at a museum can be evidence of a policy affecting up to 75 cars, some of which were scrapped as
early as 1967 and some of which surrendered parts to build a smaller number of 4000s.   Are the trucks you saw even broad gauge?

What logic in my statement? I simply said what I had seen. My opinion is that continuing this truck discussion is only wasting time, if we have no tangible sources of information. I have no idea what late PRCo or PAAC did with trucks, but some of them obviously could not originate from Pittsburgh property. The only intent of my note was to tell the people that B-2b trucks with rubber bolster springs still exist and PRCo or PAAC thus could not rebuild them into B-2s.
I don't understand your question concerning B-2b trucks on PTM property, Fred. At least some of them are under SHRT PCC, and if the car was running over PTM track during the big move, they had to be broad gauge trucks.

Boris