[PRCo] Re: B3 TRUCKS ON PITTSBURGH CITY 1700S

[Fred Schneider]

PAT refused to condemn a substantial amount of PRC property including  
the overhead crane at Homewood, 76 PCCs in Rankin Carhouse ... I  
would have to go back and look at the list.   They were selective  
about what they wanted and what they didn't want.    The argument  
simply wasn't over price, it was also over items to be condemned.   I  
suggest, Boris, you might want to go back and read the Pittsburgh  
Post Gazette during 1964. 1965, 1966 and 1967.

The final settlement was made out of court on July 14, 1967 with  
Pittsburgh Railways retaining the following assets:  105 streetcars,  
40 buses, Rankin Carbarn, the real estate where the Herron Hill  
carbarn had stood, the 40 foot shop crane inside the Homewood Shops,  
the employees' restroom at the trolley loop in Carnegie and other  
property that the authority did not want.   You may wish to consult  
the Pittsburgh Post Gazette or the Pittsburgh Press for July 14 or  
July 15, 1967, Boris, if you doubt my veracity.    I got it from  
clippings from the Post Gazette.

On Sep 17, 2006, at 4:27 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> I'd be sure that the crane was scrapped.  I never heard this story  
> before,
> though.
>
> From 1963-1967 I was away at college and wasn't paying much  
> attention to
> transit, so I don't remember much about the transition.  We got the  
> morning
> edition of the afternoon Pittsburgh Press in Greenville...I suspect  
> I never
> saw a lot of articles even if I was looking at the time.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of  
> Boris
> Cefer
> Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 2:11 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: B3 TRUCKS ON PITTSBURGH CITY 1700S
>
>
> Does that mean that the crane remained in PRCo ownership?
>
> I hope to hear Ed's comment when he has a few minutes.
>
> B
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 12:41 AM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: B3 TRUCKS ON PITTSBURGH CITY 1700S
>
>
>> Pittsburgh Railways shifted a lot of the inspection work from
>> Homewood to the car houses in the early 1960s.   This was brought out
>> in the condemnation proceedings.   The county pointed out that PRC
>> had reduced the number of cars going through Homewood and the
>> railways countered with a statement that they were doing a lot of the
>> work in the car houses.   What work, I don't know.   It may have
>> simply been a fluff statement.   There was documentation of the A, B,
>> C program in the Transit Journal when it was started about 1933 as a
>> depression economy move.  What they were trying to do was rationalize
>> how they spent money and inspecting cars on a mileage basis seemed to
>> be a logical answer.   I think we would all agree it makes sense ...
>> that's the way we do our automobiles today.
>>
>> But by the 1960s the company is in a liquidation mode.   The county
>> was condemning it.    The company was simply trying to conserve
>> cash.   Conserving cash meant not wasting it running cars across town
>> to the shops to inspect them if you could do it in a car house and
>> not fixing something that didn't need to be fixed.
>>
>> It also meant that some things could be delegated.   If the motorman
>> could be coerced into washing his own windshield, then let him do
>> it.   If you think I'm kidding, I'm not.   I remember Norm Vutz
>> telling me about a conversation with a motorman about what it was
>> like working for PAT and the answer was, "I didn't have to wash the
>> streetcar windshield this morning."
>>
>> There were only three car houses left when PAT took over:   Tunnel,
>> Keating and Craft.   If memory serves, there were about 360 active
>> cars ... the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s and 1700s.  The 1200s were mostly
>> stored in Rankin.   Keating closed in 1965.   Craft closed in early
>> 1967.   They wanted to keep Homewood open and tracks were maintained
>> but it rapidly became impossible to get cars in and out of the shop
>> because people would park autos on the tracks.   I'm also not sure
>> what PAT did in Homewood between 1964 and 1966.   They took the
>> building but not the overhead crane.
>>
>> So after early 1967 the issue of which cars went to the shop and
>> which were done in the car house was moot.    They might have trucked
>> parts across town for a while.
>>
>> EHL can fill in the details from Trolley Fare when Homewood was
>> physically closed.
>
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