[PRCo] Re: Maintenance

[Fred Schneider]

The LA cars preserved at Perris testify to very impressive  
maintenance practices.   At least when LARy or LATL people ran wires  
under the cars, they ran them in flexible metal housings (I'm not  
sure of the proper name).   Nothing was ever run unprotected.

But different companies had different beliefs.   Some thought it was  
cheaper to wait until something broke and then fix it.   Others  
believed it was cheaper to spend the money to make certain that  
nothing ever broke.    Certainly the latter was a good public  
relations maneuver.  It also avoided accidents.    I'm not sure you  
could tell which system was better unless you tried both under two  
parallel and identical systems and there is no such thing.

Interestingly, the LA stuff was always freshly painted.   It ran  
well ... buses or cars.   And the people quit riding and bought  
automobiles.

The Pittsburgh cars were crap.   The schedules were lousy.   And the  
people quit riding and bought automobiles.

On Nov 29, 2005, at 4:19 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:

> Several weeks back. I got some photos of 3001's underfloor equipment.
>
> B
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 3:29 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Maintenance
>
>
>> When did you look at it, Boris?  We do know a lot about it.   For
>> example, all of the car record cards for Los Angeles Railway / LATL
>> are at the museum in Perris.   If someone wants to look, and there
>> are those who have, we know precisely what was done.   Jim is
>> correct.   LATL's maintenance was superb ... among the best in the
>> nation and it was a National City Lines property to boot.
>>
>> On Nov 29, 2005, at 6:48 AM, Boris Cefer wrote:
>>
>>> The external appearance of the Los Angeles PCCs (and not only of
>>> them) was
>>> excellent, but we don't know much about the electrical and  
>>> mechanical
>>> repairs and preventive maintenance. At least the electrical
>>> compartments of
>>> car 3001 preserved by OERM appear far better than PRCo 1138 these
>>> days. But
>>> there is a fact that Los Angeles did not and does not use salt to
>>> treat
>>> streets in winter.
>>>
>>> B
>