[PRCo] Re: What Car is This????

[Fred Schneider]

I really hate to bring personal issues into this list, Ken.

I was unaware that PTM scrapped a SHRT Pullman.   There is a SHRT  
Pullman at PTM, number 94.   My personal reaction to it, and I jab  
Dave Hamley all the time about it, is that it is crazy to keep it  
because it is a bucket of rust and an example of the GE propulsion  
system which is difficult to maintain.   Dave feels it belongs  
because it is the first Shaker car he ever rode.   And that, to my  
manner of thinking, is what is wrong with museums.   We allow  
personal prejudices to dictate what we preserve instead of  
evolutionary or mechanical or historical significance of the vehicle  
itself.   PTM at least has a more or less unwritten policy of keeping  
the junque and allowing the next generation to decide what is  
important.   Unfortunately, the next generation will not know what is  
important.   It takes a long and detailed study of the industry to  
determine what is important and few museums have the financial  
resources to underwrite such a study.

The reason the sweeper is at Baltimore is because of Ed Amrhein,  
another hardcore workcar fanatic.   Ed is one of the few people who  
works every weekend.   He almost single-handedly holds the place  
together.   There were no work cars at BSM.   When Branford decided  
to deaccession the Baltimore crane, it came back to BSM through a  
three-way trade orchestrated by Ed.   And the sweeper is also his  
doing.  His e-mail address is "snowsweepered at ________________".   I  
won't totally give away his privacy.   He has felt for years that we  
need a sweeper and Fred has argued for just as long that if Baltimore  
has a snow deep enough to sweep, the visitors won't come anyway.

PTM has two Philly PCCs and I disagree with that too.   One has been  
reconfigured as a handcapped accessible (parttially ADA compliant)  
car that we use for handicapped passengers and birthday parties.   It  
has fold-down tables in the front of the car and fold up seats that  
can make way for wheel chairs.   I've seen the car with as many as 10  
wheel-chair bound people in it.   The other car is still in red-white- 
blue SEPTA paint with a burnt-out traction motor.   It was one of the  
General Overhaul (GOH) or General Screw Up cars that SEPTA messed up  
in the 1980s.    It rests in the "blimp hanger" and you can see it if  
you pay for the storage barn tour at 1:30 each afternoon.   The best  
solution to any of those cars is to tear out all the wiring and redo  
according to original wiring blueprints and why bother.  How many  
PCCs does any museum need.   They really are not ideal museum cars.    
They consume too much power.   They need to be run constantly to work  
right.   They need a lot of technically savy people to repair them.    
It's a lot cheaper to run and easier to maintain a two-motor car like  
New Orleans 832 or Philadelphia 5326.

Are we done inflict personal issues on the list?

fws


On Feb 14, 2007, at 7:24 PM, Ken & Tracie wrote:

> Well, I'm a hardcore workcar fan, Fred. I realize some have to be  
> sacrificed
> to restore passenger car bodies to operating status as the  
> passenger cars
> generate revenue for museums and tourist operations. (Unless you  
> are part of
> the IRM Electric Car Department. Then you say your favorite car has  
> a "leaky
> roof" or a "finicky controller" to keep it hidden in the barn 364  
> days of
> any given year.)
>
> The L-5 was constructed during WW II to haul coal from the  
> Milwaukee Road
> interchange at Powerton to the Lakeside Power Plant in St. Francis.  
> It was
> built with a wooden body and reportedly had grounding issues (it  
> would zap
> crew members in the cab on damp days, which Milwaukee has more than  
> few each
> year.) It was the first (and only) road locomotive to be retired at  
> the
> WEPCO power plants which had electric rail service. It was retired  
> around
> 1955 and sat around as parts source while the other seven steeple  
> cabs ran
> into the late 1960s.
>
> The L-5 was snagged for preservation and basically sat around at  
> North Lake
> and then East Troy. Paul Averdung dismantled it for parts during  
> the 1980s.
> There were howls of protest. As rare as wooden steeplecabs are, one  
> has to
> wonder if its restoration would have been worth it.
>
> CA&E car 321 was purchased for parts to restore a TM interurban car  
> at IRM.
> A decision was made later on to restore the 321 and it toched off a
> firestorm of protest. In retrospect, it was kinda funny.
>
> I see PTM has two Phiilly PCCs now. They scrapped a SHRT P-S PCC.  
> Do they
> still have another one?
>
> K.
>
>
> Ol Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 3:54 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: What Car is This????
>
>
>> Ken:
>>
>> I should not vent my frustrations openly.   But I simply do not think
>> the Baltimore Streetcar Museum is a place where Philadelphia PCCs
>> (there are four or five of them there) and snow sweepers (two of
>> them) belong.   It was originally created as a venue for Baltimore
>> transit vehicles.   Even though I've been accused of being
>> sympathetic to PCC cars after having written two books, I really
>> cannot condone preserving every available PCC car on the planet.   I
>> would much rather see them scrapped and the scarce resources spent
>> instead on more rare streetcars or even old factory buildings or
>> mansions or our national parks or perhaps even rare art.
>>
>> There, that ought to start a real ruckus.
>>
>> fws
>>
>> On Feb 14, 2007, at 6:29 PM, Ken & Tracie wrote:
>>
>>> Sheesh, is this what I started? :-)
>>>
>>> Okay, Titans, next time you're around Milwaukee fans, ask how they
>>> feel
>>> about the fate of the wooden steeple cab locomotive L-5.
>>>
>>> Or about CA&E passenger car 321.
>>>
>>> K.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Edward H. Lybarger" <trams2 at comcast.net>
>>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:30 PM
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: What Car is This????
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dis be da HOOK alright.  I'm glad it has a happy home.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of
>>>> Fred
>>>> Schneider
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 4:39 PM
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: What Car is This????
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is that where that piece of junk came from?   The car at BSM is the
>>>> old car known as HOOK.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>