[PRCo] Re: Heaters

[Fred Schneider]

And many PCCs had heaters under the dash for the operators.   Even in  
that era they were treated separately from the comfort of the  
passengers.

If we were to go back farther, however, and this is for the education  
of some of the younger members on the list, transit companies often  
felt compulsion to warm neither the passengers nor the crew.    For  
example, in Baltimore, heaters were not installed until about World  
War I when an order of the Maryland Public Service Commission  
dictated that cars be heated to 50 degrees.   United Railway and  
Electric bought unadjustable and untamperable thermostats preset to  
50 degrees ... there was no sense paying for more kilowatts than the  
law demanded.   After all, the passengers were wearing coats.    
They'd been standing in the weather anyway.  So 50 degrees in a car  
was warm.   And we pay the crew so they can bloody well accept what  
we give them.

Prior to that there was a similar PSC directive requiring that cars  
have glazed vestibules.   Again URE felt there was no reason to make  
its motormen comfortable on rainy or cold days.   We pay them to  
work.   Why should we also make them comfortable.   That didn't  
change until the PSC ordered comfort.

If someone wants to take the time to copy articles out of the trade  
press, I'm sure there are hundreds of them on the pros and cons of  
keeping the public and the crews comfortable versus the costs of  
doing so.

While on the subject of heat, most of the railways I remember in the  
east used electric platform heaters under the seats ... usually two  
or three clusters of five 110 volt units wired in series across 550  
volts.   Some cities, however, didn't upgrade power facilities to the  
degree needed for both propulsion and heating.   Twin City Rapid  
Transit in Minneapolis and St. Paul was heating all or most of their  
older wooden cars into the 1950s with under floor coal furnaces.   
Their cars also had storm windows.

Note here that we're discussing urban transit vehicles.  Commuter  
railroad coaches came close to fitting into the same category as  
trolley cars, often using nothing more than a single coal stove in  
the middle of the coach for heat.   The Boston and Maine was still  
using wooden coaches with stove heat into the 1950s, and some of  
those are still in use at the Strasburg Rail Road.    Interurban  
cars, intercity buses and long distance railroad coaches required an  
entirely different level of comfort.

On Aug 4, 2006, at 5:40 AM, Jim Holland wrote:

> TEP wrote:
> .
>
>> .......but the reality is that in cold weather passengers dress  
>> for it
>> -- as should the operator. 
>
> .
> Yes, Ops dress for cold weather but Do Not wear their overcoat while
> operating  --  sweater maybe, but not a jacket  --  too encumbering
> otherwise.       Even here in SF we have cab heat for op platform
> separate from car heater on all our equipment.
> .
> .
>
>> The car takes a while to warm up and could be on the chilly side
>> between pulling out of the yard and getting warmed up by rush hour
>> passengers, it will be fine thereafter.
>
> .
> Not  At  All  Unlike the PCC  --  in South Hills, cars dragged the
> brakes down through the tunnel in the PM rush to warm them up and soon
> after they filled up with passengers.       A little different in  
> the AM
> rush.
> .
> .
>
>> There is nothing worse than being stuck in a sealed car with failed
>> air conditioning, shades of the 1700s that I frequently rode in the
>> Pittsburgh summers of the 1960s.
>
> .
> Can only remember one time when cold on a PCC in Pittsburgh in the
> winter, and that was the Drake trip with Charlie that I already
> related.       Can only remember one time in the summer when the heat
> got to me on a 17  --  was on my way to Grandparents house in Homewood
> in the latter 1950s, on the 88 outbound, someone had a portable radio
> and if I heard it Once I heard it Once Million Times  --  """50- 
> million
> times a day, at home at work and on the way - everyone Loves Coca- 
> Cola,
> everyone loves Coke!"""       I was getting light headed from the  
> heat.
> .
> The 17s were My Favorite Car - on the Interurbans All The Time because
> that is what they ran - can only remember less than half dozen  
> trips on
> a 16 on the Interurban, and most of them in  ({[pat]})  days.        
> If I
> knew a 17 was on some line I would sometimes wait for that car,  
> esp. in
> the early days when the B2B trucks were intact on and functioning
> properly on City Cars  --  Absolutely  Heavenly  ride on the B2B.
> .
> Summer and Winter I would deliver the Sunday morning SnoozePapers As
> Early As Possible and then run out and get my Sunday Pass  --  I was
> usually on an inbound 42 by 6-AM and caught some of the pullouts  
> for the
> Interurban - I would return home only for dinner and would then go  
> back
> out until 10-PM in the school year and Much Later in the summer.
> Always enjoyed the ride and was very rarely uncomfortable because of
> heat or cold.
> .
> Not So San Francisco!       ALWAYS    cold on the PCCs here.        
> Baby
> Tens only had op heater and the draft over rode that.       Taped
> cardboard together which would fold nicely so I could spread it around
> the feet to my right  --  that helped.       11s not much better, even
> though they were ex-SLPS.       Heaters disconnected or needed  
> reverser
> key to activate.       One group of Proposed PCCs for either MSR or  
> Muni
> had    SCREENS    for the front windshield,   NOT   glass    ----
> that would be   Kewl   Literally at 40-mph down  OR  Up through the  
> Twin
> Peaks Tunnel   (which was shut down from 08-AM til 10-PM Wednesday
> because of a derailment!!)
> .
> .
> .
> Jim___Holland
>
>
>