[PRCo] Re: PCC__Seats

[Fred Schneider]

Many years ago, Howard White, who co-edited Headlights magazine with  
me, came to me and asked me what percentage of management decisions  
were valid.   He read a lot and somewhere that morning he had read a  
study that showed that in a good, well managed company, about 58%  
percent of the decisions were good decisions.   To continue the  
thread, he pointed out that in a poorly managed company, perhaps 52  
or 53% of the decisions were faulty.    I have no clue what study he  
had been reading that day.   Before 10 AM each day he had usually  
read at least three newspapers, and the Wall Street Journal and the  
New York Times were two of them.   But it proved there was a lot of  
variance.

This brings me to the theme of the mohair seats on the Pittsburgh  
PCCs.   Apparently that was a flawed decision or it would have been  
continued on subsequent orders after the Tens or Elevens.   There is  
a negative in the PTM library of a car cleaner with his hand held  
tank vacuum cleaner sucking the dirt out of the seat fabric.   It  
occurs to me that a damn rang wiped over weather was a much easier  
course, particularly in a three-shirt-a-day-town such as Pittsburgh.
I'm not surprised that the 1000s were split between leather and  
fabric because there was no time to evaluate the fabric on 100  
because the order for the 1000s was placed before 100 was  
delivered.   I'm not sure if the 1100s were split, but we know the  
1200s were leather.   They knew by 1940 that steel mill dirt and  
mohair seat cushions did not go well together.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just go back 70 years and find out why?

The seat cushion decision seems to be one of their bad choices just  
like MU control.    Did they buy nearly 300 MU cars that they never  
ran in trains because they planned to or was the mentality of the  
company focused on remoted control systems because the early Jones  
scheme was remote?







On Mar 11, 2006, at 3:26 AM, Holland Electric Rwy. Op. H.E.R.O. --  
Import SPTC 1.48 Models // James B. Holland wrote:

> Is your scan of Car #100?       That was the point in my original
> posting  --  seems car #100 arrived with the Herringbone Seat  
> Covering,
> according to Trolley Talk.
>
>
>
> Boris Cefer wrote:
> .
>
>> I think this photo shows the seats far better.
>> B
>
> -- URL : 
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/101carco1603-3.jpg
>
>
>
> Jim__Holland
>
>
> I__Like__Ike.......And__PCCs!!
>
> down with pantographs ---- UP___WITH___TROLLEYPOLES!!!!!!!
>
>