[PRCo] Re: Home

[Boris Cefer]

Fred, you are on a good wave today :-)

B
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 9:09 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Home


> Yes.    But Donora is in Washington County. It did not apply there.
>
> There were attempts to clean up the atmosphere in Pittsburgh very
> early but it was not always politically palatable.   In fact the city
> office of the Bureau of Smoke Regulation was closed in 1939.   In
> 1941, however the city passed a smoke control ordinance but several
> months later, in response to our entry into World War II, enforcement
> of this city law had to be postponed until 1946.   It applied
> initially only to factories but was extended, with some political
> difficulty, to private homes in October 1947 (because it required
> people to either convert to smokeless fuels (gas or oil) or use coal
> in conjunction with mechanical stokers.   In spite of protests from
> the Pennsylvania Railroad, which made a lot of money haul coal and
> who burned coal in prodigious quantities, a county-wide smoke control
> law passed the state senate on April 30, 1947.    The Pennsylvania
> Railroad had enough diesels to convert their Pittsburgh operations by
> 1952, although Pitcairn Yard briefly saw steam again in the summer of
> 1955.   The B&O had steam based in Pittsburgh right up to 1956.
>
> What do I remember?   I was born in 1940 so not a whole lot.   We
> lived in those pristine suburbs where the sun shined.   The white
> paint on the house, according to photograph evidence, did turn gray
> in the space of a year, but as a kid I didn't know that.   But I do
> remember seeing a lot of buildings being sand blasted in the late
> 1940s (including the Pennsy station).   They suddenly changed from
> "Ostrava Gray" to all sorts of bright granite and limestone shades.
>
> Federal regulations came much later, again with the Republicans
> kicking and screaming.      ☺☺☺
>
> On Oct 27, 2005, at 2:39 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:
>
> > Wasn't there a "smoke control" in Pittsburgh in the late 40s?
> >
> > B
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <mtoytrain at bellsouth.net>
> > To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 10:23 PM
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Home
> >
> >
> >
> >>   Boris
> >>   The "Smog" of Donora i was a 9 year old boy, I remember even to
> >> this
> >>
> > day, we were at a Donora High school  verses Monongahela High School
> > football game and you could not see across the football field
> > because of the
> > Smog, yes a neighbor died from it, you could hardly breather.  My Dad
> >
> >> was employed by the Donora Zinc Works which caused the problem
> >> along with
> >>
> > the inversion of the
> >
> >> air over the valley.  It was a bad time and that is what
> >> eventually closed
> >>
> > that steel city down and the rest of the Steel Industry in the Greater
> > Pittsburgh area.
> >
> >>
> >> Jerry
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>