[PRCo] Re: Not Quite There Yet?

[Fred Schneider]

Can you imagine the rules examination!    Wow!

What, Ed, were the duties of the motorman?   And the duties of the  
conductor?


On Dec 8, 2005, at 5:19 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Yesterday it was my pleasure to spend nearly four hours  
> interviewing one of
> last two living Wheeling motormen.  He is 85 and sharp as the  
> proverbial
> tack (the other gentleman is 97).  The good news is that he talked
> constantly, and into a tape recorder for much of the time!
> One of the items he gave to the museum is a Wheeling Traction Company
> rulebook, dated 1924 and issued to him when he went to work for Co- 
> Operative
> Transit in 1942.  This was of great interest, since I have never  
> heard of
> the existence of, let alone seen a West Penn rulebook.  I thought  
> perhaps
> one from a related company would shed some insight, but I'm not  
> sure...
>
> Apart from three pages at the front, which appear to glued on before
> binding, and a note on one of them giving the Wheeling printer's  
> name, the
> entire book contains absolutely no references to the company name  
> or the
> geography in which it operates.  The inside is completely and  
> extensively
> generic and was probably published and sold by a street railway supply
> house, then bound locally with identifying additions as necessary.   
> The
> headline typeface on the title page dates from the 1800s.  The text is
> pompous, even for the 1920s:
>
> "When a dead beat, by dint of dishonesty, avoids payment of fare,  
> honest
> people have to pay their own fare and the dead beat's fare also.   
> It is the
> part of Conductor to detect and defeat dead beats."
>
> So...I'm really no farther along toward tracking one down...or am  
> I?  Could
> Connellsville have used the same thing?  It's 293 pages long,  
> including the
> index!
>
> Ed
>
>
>