[PRCo] Re: PCC book

[Fred Schneider]

Pittsburgh did not have any cars that I know of with the Peter Witt fare
collection system.  As I understand the Peter Witt (and my understanding
may be flawed as you will note from the four paragraph in this note),
the passenger entered at the front and paid just in front of the center
door and always exited by the center door.  Anyone sitting to the rear
of the center door had already passed the conductor and had therefore
paid his or her fare.  What I believe was patented was the fare
collection scheme or passenger flow pattern, and not where we put the
doors.

When configured as two-man cars, the Pittsburgh low-floor cars were
center entrance and center or front exit.  The conductor was paid as
soon as you entered inbound and when you left outbound.  A totally
different scheme.

Thank you.  You found one of the mistakes and one that I never even
noticed even though I was the one who put it there.

If we only assume that cars on which royalties were collected to be
Peter Witts, then we need to know when his patents ran out.  I recently
went looking for Witt's patents and the law librarian in Harrisburg told
me that there was no way to find patents that far back but, according to
her, it really doesn't matter because most patents were issued in the
last ten years!  Apparently, the federal government put created a new
digital index system but never went back far enough.  Furthermore, they
do not answer e-mails about how to find the old ones ... they have a
selection of canned answers and that finding a 1912 patent doesn't have
a canned answer.

If we wish to use believe that patents do go on for ever, which they
don't unless you are manufacturing Viagara,  then it also leads us down
the garden path to all sorts of other cars that could be Peter Witts.
How about the Pre-PCCs in Washington DC, which I think were front
entrance - center exit.  There is a picture in PCC From Coast to Coast
showing one of them in Rosslyn with the motorman and conductor both
standing outside their respective doors having a butt break.

And if we use a forever definition, perhaps the last Peter Witts in the
United States ran in the 1970s or 1980s ... whenever SEPTA removed the
last two-man PCC cars from service on route 53.

Bill Robb wrote:

> Hi Jim!
>
> A couple of years ago at Christmas, we had a
> discussion on another list of which cities had Peter
> Witt cars.  I said Pittsburgh.  Jim questioned my
> source and I cited PCC From Coast to Coast (p. 161).
> Jim replied that most Pittsburgh cars were one man by
> then so they wouldn't be using the Peter Witt fare
> collection system. It's really a very minor, more of a
> description than a fact. And the book is about one of
> the best ever written about traction.
>
> Bill Robb
>
> --- "James B. Holland" <PRCoPCC at P-R-Co.com> wrote:
>
> > I found what I consider  *Typos*    ----    Not
> > Errors.
> >
> > On the foldout entitled:::::::
> >
> >
> *Equipment__Variations_--_North__American__PCC__Cars*
> >
> > in the rear pocket, on the back under Pittsburgh it
> > lists the
> > 1500--1564s as having 12-degree front windshield
> > slopes when they were
> > in fact identical to the 1400s, a 24-degree slope.
> >     The 1601--1699
> > Air-Electrics reverted to a 12-degree slope  --
> > would be interesting to
> > understand why.       Aesthetically, I like the
> > 12-degree on
> > Air-Electrics.        The 30-degree slope of
> > All-Electrics is fine as
> > well  --  maybe a larger front windshield on a
> > 24-degree slope would
> > look good as well  --  or not cutting the upper
> > exterior corner of the
> > window for air intake would make a difference.
> >
> > There are a couple others but can't remember them
> > offhand.
> >
> >
> > Jim__Holland
> >
> >
> >
> > Bob Rathke wrote:
> >
> > > My copy is the First Edition, including the data
> > foldout. I'd be
> > > interested in knowing about any of the significant
> > errors in this edition.
> > >
> > > As I mentioned in an e-mail to the list this
> > Spring, I bought my copy
> > > of the PCC book at the Illinois Railway Museum in
> > April - it was in a
> > > large box of books that I bought at $1/inch of
> > book thickness.
> > > So, the PCC book cost me...75 cents???
> > >
> > > Bob 1/1/05
> > >
> > > -----------------------------
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Fred Schneider" <fschnei at supernet.com>
> > > To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> > > Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 2:05 PM
> > > Subject: [PRCo] Re: PCC book
> > >
> > >
> > >> The first printing had a data foldout in the back
> > ... the second did
> > >> not.       Make sure it is there if you bid or
> > you might just as well
> > >> look for a second printing which had some of the
> > other mistakes
> > >> cleaned up. fws
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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