[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh Rys car 4398

[Ken & Tracie]

Tongue-in-cheek warning:

I may step on a few of my fellow Wisconsin fans, but I may as well go public 
with this. There are two retired and complete Milwaukee city cars which will 
probably never run again, at least before anybody who actually rode them (in 
service) is still among the living.

Main excuse in both cases? Bad bolsters.

I plan to kidnap those two brilliant youngsters you guys at PTM are blessed 
with and turn them lose at a couple of unnamed museums to do their magic on 
some Brew City survivors!

Sneak 'em into the carbarns and put 'em to work before letting the "brass" 
know what's going on. Those cars will be so far along by the time the 
elected officials find out about it, that they'll have no choice but to 
approve funding to complete them! :-)

K.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Schneider" <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Cc: "Allman Rich" <trolleydoc at aol.com>; "Boris Cefer" <westinghouse at iol.cz>; 
"Bruce Wells" <bwells at nauticom.net>; "Tom Phillips" <tsquare at toad.net>; 
"Dick Kotulak" <CRVLKOTULA at aol.com>; "Bruce Bente" <bbente at cytechusa.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 5:01 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Pittsburgh Rys car 4398


> For those unable to get there ...
>
> I had meetings yesterday at PTM with the docent training committee and
> the education committee, and that gave me a wonderful opportunity to see
> how the overhaul of 4398 was progressing.  I love receiving Bruce Well's
> "weekly" reports but seeing is so many times better.
>
> My initial reaction was, "My God, it's self supporting."   It's resting
> on cribbing at the bolsters.  It doesn't sag.   It looks like a
> streetcar.  And it's probably less than 5% St. Louis Car Co. 1917 by
> weight and more than 95% PTM.   The roof carlines and the letterboard
> are original and Justin showed me two small pieces of original steel in
> the frame.    Justin, Jeff, Ralph and company were riveting in the
> center door step well and the posts between the center door leaves.
> What a heat sink that steel body is after sitting in an unheated
> environment.  A bright orange rivet could be placed through the steel
> and it would turn black in about 5 or 6 seconds .... tells you just how
> much time Justin had to hammer it in place.
>
>
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