[PRCo] Re: Government Corruption (was Wheels__&__Shoes)

[Fred Schneider]

Not quite Ken.  Remember that PAT took over in 1964 and the PCCs quit running
about 1998.  That's 34 years, much longer than the normal worker holds a job.
PAT started with excellent people.  One motorman at the end of the PCC era
confided that the people they had then didn't have a clue how to fix those
cars.   Maybe true.  Maybe they simply didn't order parts in time or didn't want
to order new parts at all or didn't want to pay to keep them running in the last
year or two.  We also need to understand that governments' purposes are not
necessarily to serve the public so it doesn't matter if the cars work or don't
work.

Twelve years?  Interesting.  My VW Passat is half way there and I only have
121,000 on it now.  The dealer tells me that 200,000 is a given but 242,000?   I
wonder.

Remember that the bus companies were just as starved for cash as the railways
before them.  I remember Charlie Nissley showing me a GM that Conestoga
Transportation had repainted and spruced up in the early 1970s.  It looked
really nice.  I asked him if it would start on compression or if he needed
ether.  The response was, "We don't have the money to fix engines.  We can't
even keep the affirmative action people happy because we don't have the money to
instal a toilet for women."  I think the reason Fitzjohn, Brill, Ford, Marmon,
and all the rest of those builders of 27, 28 and 30 foot buses went out of
business in the 1950s was simple ... The market place for their product existed
only once after World War II.  Once they sold a bus to Henry's Bus Co., that was
it.  If Mr. Henry needed another bus, he would find a used one from some other
company that went out of business.  And that would hold Mr. Henry until he too
went out of business.  The life of the little transit companies was essentially
the life of the bus.  Places like Baltimore and Pittsburgh sometimes managed two
orders for the same service ... we have GMC TDH 4506-0001 (immediate post war)
in our collection at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum ... it lasted, I think,
right up until Maryland MTA bought the property from NCL.  Some of those
1955-1958 GMCs from Philly were still running on SEPTA in the 1980s ... NCL
didn't have the money to buy new ones from GM.

I expect to receive some hate mail on this one ... someone will provide more
detail on companies that did keep coaches longer.  And there were some.  There
were some like Harrisburg Railways that bought new fishbowls, ran them for a
year or so, and then moved them off to another ATA property that needed them
more ... Cincincinnati, Newport and Covington.  But they did buy GMs in the
1960s to replace Whites from the 1950s.

I expect to receive some hate mail on this one ... someone will provide more
detail on companies that did keep coaches longer.  And there were some.

fws

ktjosephson at earthlink.net wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fschnei at supernet.com>
>
> >......  When he left state service
> > we said he was going to write a book about his experiences in government.
> A year
> > later he told me he abandoned the project "because no one would believe
> what he
> > wrote."   The truth is, no one would believe how corrupt government can be
> unless
> > you are lecturing to the choir.
>
> So true. Many of us (public employees) know of some awful situations and
> incidents going on where we work. We also know if we revealed them, we would
> not only get framed and fired, but we would forced to leave town, looking
> over our shoulders. I am serious. The "whistle blower" laws are a big joke.
>
> I know of one public entity which has a former newspaper reporter employed
> as their public relations official. His real job is to use his connections
> with the local media to keep that entity's mis-steps and dirty dealings out
> of the press and off the T.V. news.
>
> It's funny how local politicians and their cronies in the press hammered
> PRCo for years when it was an "evil" (read PRIVATE) profit-seeking company.
> I wonder if today's politicians keep some of PAT's affairs (read total
> screw-ups with TAXPAYERS' money) from the media. That is, unless they have
> an axe to grind with an appointed transit offical and want to pressure or
> embarrass him/her enough to leave.
>
> As I understand it, transit buses currently purchased with federal funds
> (formerly local money that has been hijacked to D.C. for the "general
> welfare" of the masses) have to be retained for about twelve years.
> Therefore, instead of the dependable beasts of burden from a generation ago
> (and before), we wind up with buses that are worn out and not worth
> rebuilding after just over a decade of use. Love 'em or hate 'em, most of
> those old Macks, GMCs, Brills, Flxibles, etc. could last long after they
> were fully depriciated. And of course, struggling transit companies would
> give them the necessary TLC to keep them useable for many years.
>
> I don't know how long today's rail cars are designed to last, but I wonder
> if they will be able to haul loads as long and as reliably as Chicago's "Old
> Pullmans" (1907-1954) or as most PCCs did. Fred will point out that
> Pittsburgh had to make their remaining PCCs last as long as they did since
> they had nothing else to put on the rails prior to the Steel City's "light
> rail" era. But PAT did have knowlegeable and skilled shop crews that did
> their jobs well. And many of them stuck around long after the former PRCo
> engineering staff was given the boot.
>
> K.