[PRCo] Re: PCC__Seats

[Edward H. Lybarger]

As I understand the seat covering decision, half the cars were delivered
with leather, half with fabric.  PRCo then chose the one that they felt was
better.  There is something in the library that directed me to this
understanding, but I couldn't tell you where today.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:52 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PCC__Seats


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!!!!!!!
>
>