[PRCo] Re: Homewood Carbarn fire

[Fred Schneider]

Let's add a postscript to the Homewood fire:

1.   Apparently only ten cars were lost because photos show 1600  
sitting on arch bar trucks immediately after the fire.   My  
speculation is that PRC may have already been in the process of  
cannibalizing that car.   Remember that in 1954 they had enough PCCs  
for all the service but the fire happened in 1955.   There would have  
been surplus cars again.  Of course there were.   It didn't hurt  
them.   They got insurance money.

2.   This was the second Homewood Car House fire.  The first one  
happened many years earlier and burnt the west end off the same  
building, leaving an outdoor storage yard with a track that ran  
diagonally across it.     That was once all under cover.    The west  
end of the remaining building had a unfinished look from then until  
1955 when the second fire took down the rest of it.   It had had only  
the sides with the steel roof trusses exposed.

fws

On Jan 10, 2006, at 5:16 PM, James B. Holland wrote:

> Bill Robb wrote:
> .
>
>> "This $400,000 blaze struck one of Pittsburgh's Street Car Barns on
>> July 12th, 1955. Fourteen new cars were destroyed and eleven others
>> damaged.
>
> .
> 1955.05.18 was the date.
> .
> PCCs  1026    1051    1155    1220    1281    1294    1600    1648
> 1682    1701    1725    were lost in that blaze  --  11 cars.        
> M197
> was also lost in this fire, presumably the vehicle that caused the
> sparks!!!!!!!
> .
> .
> .
>
>> Fire Chief Steve Adley, who was in charge at the scene, was told by
>> employees that a short circuit in the motor of an old work motor that
>> recently been pulled into the barn, started the blaze. The sparks had
>> set fire to the grease, and the fire had started to travel up the
>> sides of the barn interior. The roof, which was made up of wood and
>> tarpaper, quickly ignited. The roof soon collapsed. Six alarms were
>> rung in, bringing over 25 pieces of fire apparatus to the scene. This
>> facility was one block long. Firemen were able to stop the fire from
>> reaching the No. 1 Barn and an oil storage shed."
>
>
>
>
>
> Jim__Holland
>
>
> I__Like__Ike.......And__PCCs!!
>
> down with pantographs ---- UP___WITH___TROLLEYPOLES!!!!!!!
>
>
>