[PRCo] Re: ERC 4398 Post Card - this time with link

[Fred Schneider]

Looks like Craft to me.  I first photographed the car on 13 July 1958.  I had arranged a
fantrip with 1707.  We were coming in Second Avenue when Roy Taylor suggested he pull
our car into Glenwood Carhouse to see the relic.  The barn people pulled it out of the
barn, ran it for a few hundred feet on 2nd Avenue, and into the yard for pictures.  John
Bromley scanned my Kodacolor negative of it on 2nd Avenue and was selling pictures of it
on e-Bay ... perhaps he still has the scan on his computer and wants to make prints.

It was one of approximately ten double-end cars that were speeded up.  It needs more
research but I think most if not all of the high speed 4350s were based at Glenwood, out
of which they might have run on 56B, 59, 63 and 99 lines.  My recollection is that,
after the last routes requiring double end cars were abandoned in the summer of 1953,
PRC decided to keep ten cars (the high speeds) for use in the event of accidents and
fires.  I was told they were deployed to carbarns throughout the system.  They were all
gone within perhaps two years.  Sometime after 1953, PRC also explored double-end PCCs
for emergencies.   It may not have been a good option early on, but as more and more
heavily patronized lines became bus routes, the number of spare buses available had to
increase as would the number of men and women qualified to drive them.   Probably by
1960, with large coaches in service in the west end, on routes 60 and 68, and on all
five of the former Millvale lines, and the express bus routes on the parkway and Ohio
River Boulevard, there was no need to look back to trolleys in an emergency.

Regarding 3756 -- it now has stress cracks in the letterboard at the right and left
edges of the center door ... about 1/8 to 3/16 inches wide ... the ends of the car are
falling down.  When I first qualified on it ten years ago I was advised not to touch any
loose wires.  It too needs a lot of tender loving car.  Ther other side of 66 needs to
rebuilt so that the center door and folding step works correctly.

Bob Rathke wrote:

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> ----- Original Message -----=20
> From: Bob Rathke=20
> To: Pittsburgh Rys. List=20
> Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 10:18 AM
> Subject: PERC 4398 Post Card
>
> See link below for a scan of the PERC 4398 post card (not copyrighted) =
> that was sold in the early 1960's.  The photo was taken on PRC property, =
> probably in the late 1950's.
>
> The caption reads, "Car 4398 is one of several trolleys owned by =
> Pittsburgh Electric Railway Club's Arden Short Line Electric Railway =
> Museum, near Washington, Pa."
>
> Bob 3/20/04
>
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
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> -- Size: 139k (143350 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/PRC4398percPostCard.JPG