[PRCo] Re: Braking Systems and ACCIDENTS

[Fred Schneider]

YES, GUYS, WE'RE BACK ON ACCIDENTS AGAIN.   We need to be mindful of  
something else other than just hand brakes versus air brakes versus  
track brakes.

We all recognize that the young know they will live forever, and the  
elderly have somewhat different thoughts on the word perpetual.   Our  
teenagers can drive at 90 miles per hour because they will never get  
hurt.   And I too will admit to finding out how fast my dad's Mercury  
would go when I was 17.   I think I chickened out at 103 and then I  
feared that somehow he would find out.    How does this relate to  
trolley accidents?

Remember that there was a time when horse cars and electric traction  
was an infant industry.   Late on evening of August 13, 1896,  
Pennsylvania Traction Company had a rather bloody accident at Laurel  
Hill Cemetery, Columbia, Pa., in which an 18 foot bodied closed car  
was rolled ass over tin cup.  There were at least 68 people on the  
car if the sum of dead and injured equals the total.  It came down  
the hill from Kleinsville, overloaded, on wet rail following a  
thunderstorm.   The young man running it had so much muscle in his  
right arm that, when the car failed to slow down (it was obviously  
sliding on wet rail and he didn't know that fact), that he continued  
to tighten up on the hand brake until he broke the brake chain.    
Talk about muscle!    This was well before the air-brake era.   The  
six dead included the motorman, the conductor, the burgess or mayor  
of the borough of Columbia, the town chief of police and two other  
less influential people.   No one with the company observed the lads  
checking the sand boxes that day.    The lads.   I said infant  
industry.   The kids in charge of the car were both teenagers.   We  
have found no record that tells us how many months these boys had  
worked ... they may have been given a few days training and this was  
their first thunderstorm!   Training evolves as a result of  
accidents.   If no one is hurt or killed, no questions are asked, and  
training can be very minimal.   This was the company's first  
runaway.   So Fred is reluctant to say hand brakes played any role in  
it.   Packing 5 tons of people into a 5 or 6 ton car might have  
something to do with it.

'The wreck bankrupted the company and resulted in a name change to  
Conestoga Traction Company ... or did it?  No really.   The financing  
was already so weak it was just the straw that broke the proverbial  
camel's back.   It is becoming apparent to me that the money was  
disappearing into the pockets of the president and his brother.     
Six years later one of them ran off and the other was fired six  
months after that.

One of the reasons we have so many pictures of people in the 1930s,  
40s and 50s running the last trips who also ran the first trips is  
because the men who started the trolley companies were all eager  
beavers.   All young men.   All people who would live forever and not  
have accidents.   Well, some of them did get lucky and did live long  
enough like most of us on this list.

Were hand brakes all that serious a problem.   I have 17 years  
experience with them at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.  I've never  
worked there one day that I didn't run a hand brake car.    Properly  
adjusted, they work just fine.   If the man using them is properly  
tuned in, they work.   In some ways they work better than air because  
they give the motorman a much better feed back than air (in much the  
same way that power brakes on an automobile mask a feel for what is  
truly happening).


On Oct 19, 2005, at 1:24 PM, John Swindler wrote:

>
>
> And then there was the run-away on Troy Hill; the run away on the hill
> leading into Wilmerding; the run away on Murray Ave. hill in  
> Squirrel Hill.;
> all within one year.  No wonder PRC went to steel cars and air  
> brakes at an
> early date.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>> From: "Boris Cefer" <westinghouse at iol.cz>
>> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Braking Systems
>> Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:37:39 +0200
>>
>> Perhaps the most tragic story of a streetcar which lost its brakes  
>> (well,
>> in
>> the PCC era) was an accident of 1727 at Station square on 28th  
>> October
>> 1987.
>> It was discussed on this list several years back, but others may  
>> add some
>> details again.
>>
>> Boris
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: <mtoytrain at bellsouth.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:25 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Braking Systems
>>
>>
>>
>>> It may sound "dumb: but with the different "HILL Routes" in  
>>> Pittsburgh,
>>>
>> were certain cars equipped with different braking s ystems to  
>> cover the
>> steep grades,    Also  were there reported
>>
>>> stories of  a trolley losing its brakes?
>>>
>>> Jerry Matsick
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>