[PRCo] Re: PCC book

[Fred Schneider]

Depends on what you consider significant.  On the fold out you can change the
compressors on all of the Pullman cars in Baltimore from PC to CP-27.
Baltimore Transit did not like the PC1s on the St. Louis cars; they rebuilt them
to PC2s but simply would not accept that design on any more cars.

Another that I remember making was changing the name of West Carson Street to
West Ohio Street under a caption (page 169 in Coast to Coast). The mind plays
tricks.  Hell, I know the names of the streets.  I've driven them many times.  I
walked all of West Carson from McKees Rocks to the Point Bridge.  And I walked
all of the Nor-side too.   Both of these were my mistakes.

Steve may be trying to forget a few of his.

There were, of course, true errors and perceived errors, and I recall more of
the latter than the former.  One man complained openly that we had not included
all of Cincinnati Car Company's weight reduction efforts as significant to the
PCC, even though the CCC curved side cars reduced weight by reducing trim
(headlining, side panels inside) and the PCCs did it by reducing motor and truck
weight ... totally different themes.   This person was also not willing to
accept the fact that his home town builder was in bankruptcy and never paid
their subscription to the Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee.
Another man took us to task for saying that PCCs ran on Sundays on PTC route 57
(Coast to Coast, page 153) ... the statement was in a caption next to a picture
of a regular service car on route 57 on a Sunday.  (One does not question Ed
Miller, who took a notebook with him to record every picture after it was taken,
even the hour and minute of the day.)  Both were fabulous examples of I'll
believe what I want to believe and you cannot change my mind.

One that I remember making was changing the name of West Carson Street to West
Ohio Street under a caption (page 169 in Coast to Coast). The mind plays tricks.

Neither the CP27 mistake nor the street renaming were ever brought to my
attention by readers.

I've also encountered a few people that told me that Mr. Schneider wrote thus
and so in his book.  "No, I do think so.  I don't remember reading it."  I know
he did ... I saw it there.  "No I never wrote that.  Oh, you're Mr. Schneider.
"Yes."   Well, I really didn't read the book ... just looked at the pictures.
And why should I be surprised?  When Howard White and I were co-editing
Headlights for the ERA, we put a flier in one issue asking what people liked
best in the past year, what they liked least, and why.  Why was almost never
filled in.  But we found out that people liked best articles about systems at
home, least about anything they had never seen, and their favorite issues were
those in which we increased the ratio of pictures to text.   Unfortunately we
were unable to simplify the discussion on trucks, patents, and so forth to the
degree that the average person would actually read it, and thus a lot of the
myths continue but now they continue with our stamp of approval.

Significant errors ... the one that bothered me the most was the omission of the
gray benday around the pictures on several of the pages between 76 and 83 ... it
resulted in "I'll see a page proofs of the second book, or else."

Actually, Bob, I was told many times afterward by people in the industry that it
was "the definitive history."  I've had so real nit pickers (even some who pick
nits better than I do) tell me that the proof reading was above average.  I've
picked up a copy 20 years later and found that it still reads well (You cannot
find the mistakes a day later; you need to forget what you were trying to say or
meant to say before you can find the glitches).   I think it was pretty clean.

Bob Rathke wrote:

> My copy is the First Edition, including the data foldout.  I'd be interested
> in knowing about any of the signifiant 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
> >
> > Mark McGuire wrote:
> >
> > >   Believe me, the price won't stay that low for long. The last minute
> > > bidders will have a field day. The cheapest I ever saw one of these go
> > > for was $45.00, which is an absolute bargain.
> >
> >
> >