[PRCo] Re: Heat at PRCo 1700 Series Cars

[Fred Schneider]

Supplemental doesn't mean enough heat to keep a car warm in museum  
duty ... it only means enough extra heat for northern climates for a  
PCC running a normal duty cycle.

Remember, a PCC was heated by the heat from the accelerating /  
braking resistors.   When a car accelerates on resistance (the first  
few seconds out of a stop) or brakes, then heat is put into the  
car.   That is adequate in Washington DC or Birmingham AL or Dallas  
TX.   It wasn't sufficient in Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Toronto so  
additional heaters were added.   But it was still assumed that the  
car would be operated and that resistors would provide some heat.

If the car sits around during the day in a trolley museum, and  
accelerates for a few seconds every hour, the supplemental heaters  
won't keep the car warm and the resistance heating isn't going to be  
adequate either.

The car at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum is OK on sunny winter days;  
you need to understand that the climate in Baltimore is 10 to 15  
degrees warmer on a typical winter day than in Pittsburgh.    That  
car has no supplemental heating.

On Aug 2, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:

> 1711 has supplemental heaters in side ducts. I saw them in a photo  
> when it
> was repaired in Elmira several years back.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 7:38 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Heat at PRCo 1700 Series Cars
>
>
>> The 1700 at PTM is a pain in a museum environment.   You can't have a
>> decent conversation with the passengers without turning off the fans,
>> and, of course, if you turn off the fans, no air moves.  It's a nice
>> spring and fall car.   It's horrid in the summer.   And, as with
>> PCCs, I don't think it has any supplemental heating so that it heats
>> in the winter only when accelerating or braking.   So it isn't a good
>> winter museum car either.
>
>