[PRCo] Changed to PCC Heaters

[Fred Schneider]

Dick Lloyd, the now deceased transportation superintendent and in an 
earlier life a motorman for Baltimore Transit Co., told an intriguing 
story of an winter owl trip to Catonsville.  A man got on his car in the 
darkest hours of the morning and asked Dick why his car was warm and 
every one else's cars were cold when he got on.  The secret was simple.  
The Baltimore PCCs had no supplementary heaters ... just the recaptured 
heat from accelerating / braking resistor elements. If the car wasn't 
accelerating or wasn't braking, there will be no heat.  As we all know, 
the absence of heat is cold.   Dick didn't like sitting in the cold any 
more than any one else, and he was bright enough to observe that he 
could make a quick run back to Irvington (either the loop or the barn) 
and back to Catonsville between his scheduled arrive time at the end of 
the line and his scheduled leave time.   So his car was always 
accelerating and braking, and therefore being heated. 
We need to understand that the resistance is probably all cut out within 
the first 10 seconds that the car is accelerating from a stop. (I need 
someone more electrically inclined to talk to ... the PCC could reach 15 
mph in about five seconds and 25 mph in ten seconds, and after that the 
acceleration rate flattens out severely.  This suggests to me that the 
cars are off resistance and on field shunts by 25 mph. This is why the 
interurban cars didn't heat well: the stops were about 1/2 mile apart 
and maybe you picked up a passenger at every second or third stop.   The 
implies that you were throwing heat into the car for about 10 seconds, 
then you ran in the cold for two minutes or three minutes, before 
braking started to heat the car again.   And it probably didn't work 
terribly well running from Catonsville to Irvington and back to 
Catonsville in the middle of the night ... but it was still warmer than 
sitting still in the loop on a 35 degree night. 

My trick on a colder winter day at the museum in Baltimore is patterned 
somewhat after Dick ... after explaining to the passengers, I do a lot 
of accelerating and braking under 25 mph to warm up the car. 

For what is is worth, not all PCCs had heat and not all depended only on 
recaptured heat from acceleration and braking.  Many of the northern 
cars had a resistance heater next to the motorman (at least the guy or 
gal who spent 8 hours on those suckers would stay warm).  Some far 
northern climates put supplemental resistance heaters on the cars for 
the passengers (probably in the duct work).  And San Diego's cars never 
had provision for heating (I suspect that no provision meant no heat 
dampers).   Maybe I should look more closely at the SDER / EPCL car that 
we have in Baltimore and want to rebuild to match the early St. Looies. 

The Pittsburgh problem was allegedly solved on the 4000s ... those 
rebuilds had electric heaters.  . I  cannot testify how good they wee; I 
never rode one in revenue service in the winter.

Before I drop this whole message, we need also to understand (as I so 
often preach) that these cars were run by private, for-profit 
companies.   They were not always happy with spending extra dollars just 
to keep passengers warm or cold.   For example, Baltimore cars never had 
heat until the Maryland Public Service Commission demanded it.  I think 
the date was around World War I.  The PSC specified a minimum of 50 
degrees.  United Railways and Electric responded by purchasing thousands 
of thermostats preset (and untamperable) to 50 degrees.  Their 
stinginess is understandable ... it took a lot of additional energy (and 
substation capacity) to heat 1,000 cars. 

Method would not work today because modern cars do not use DC control or 
resistance control. 

End of lesson.  fws

Mark McGuire wrote:

>  Ah! I've seen plenty of photos of the cars with tape on the vents.
>Now I know why. Thanks for the info Jim!
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>                        Mark
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