[PRCo] Re: PCC Rehabilitation

[ktjosephson at earthlink.net]

James B. Holland wrote:

>              You want to see junky  Totally  Neglected  PCCs  then look
> to San Francisco in the late 1960s to 1982 when PCC service ended.
> *The__People's__Railway*  pg.204 and I quote:::::::       """Not until
> 1980 was there even the beginning of an effort by Muni management to
> institute a rational, comprehensive preventive maintenance
> program."""

I don't doubt this at all, Jim. But somebody either fooled Harre Demoro or
he was in denial, because he made it a point to refer to San Francisco's
PCCs as "well maintained." This was in an article where he criticized the
appearance of Pittsburgh's remaining PCCs during a March, 1969 visit. He did
indicate that Pittsburgh's PCCs seemed to be well maintained mechanically.

Maybe Mr. Demoro was being sarcastic about the Muni fleet. It would have
been interesting to see how Muni's cars would have looked by the 1970s had
San Francisco winters required liberal spreading of road salt. :-)

Perhaps the following is also just another rumor, but more than one fan has
said Toronto always took exceptional care of the PCCs they purchased new,
but weren't as concerned about any of the secondhand PCC cars. As I heard
it, all TTC cars were kept clean and well maintained, but festering rust was
always just under the skin of the secondhand cars, the policy being that
these would be the first post war cars to be retired when the new cars began
arriving during the late '70s or early '80s.

As I noted before, the body work on the repainted Boston cars I saw in 1974
never looked as good the body work of the Pittsburgh cars redone during the
1970s.

K.