[PRCo] Re: Operator Training

[Fred Schneider]

I guess I hadn't realized how far back in time the no change system goes.  It must have started very shortly after the riots in Washington DC.
It started very slowly here in Lancaster with a public announcement that riders should bring exact fare and that drivers would no longer carry as much change.  The money changers also disappeared into their box and were no longer hung in full sight.

There was a problem here in Lancaster that actually made the newspaper.  A very senior motorman got into trouble in the 1930s when the Columbia suburban line lost its conductors.  This man was totally incapable of running the car and making change ... a real Ted Baxter.  The public must have liked the man because the newspaper wasn't picking on him, merely telling his riders what
happened to him.  Having no other place to put him, and being charitable, Conestoga Transportation Company chose to make him a janitor in the carbarn.

If we had to do it today, can't we just see the conductors carrying miniature lap tops with pictures of something significant in each neighborhood?  Move the mouse to the picture of the monument in Penn Square and push enter.  Then go to the picture of Locust St. in downtown Columbia and push enter.  Then enter the amount tendered.  And then it prints a receipt and calculates the
change for those who are unable to count up.  (Yes, I'm taking a jab at all the kids in McDonalds who can neither read Hamburger nor count and who could not find their store on a map if life depended on it.)

hrbran99 at adelphia.net wrote:

> <When you started, Herb, where you required to make change?  If so, did that cause a problem for some operators?>
>
> No, change making had become a thing of the past almost all over the US do to robbery. "Ready Fare System" was the buzz phrase of the day in 1972.
>
> <Did you ever meet an operator that could not tell time?>
>
> No, I can't say that I have. However, here in Cleveland there was one who had a hard time learning the routes. Especially on routes with several branches such as 20/20A/20B/20C. Several times his bus and passengers who were supposed to be heading to Parma or Broadview Heights  ended up at the Zoo. I think they (management) convinced him to become a Rapid Transit Station Attendant.
> ============================================================
> From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> Date: 2004/06/29 Tue PM 06:05:43 EDT
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: [PRCo]
>
> I really liked Herb's response. Thanks.
>
> ============================================================