[PRCo] Fwd: Tylerdale___2

[Fred Schneider]

For those who care about control technology, Tylerdale (and  
Charleroi) were two of the car barns that had 4200s and 4300s rebuilt  
with Westinghouse "HL" control.  You can see the contactor box under  
the far end of the car in the picture.   It would not be under a car  
that had K-35 control.

I put "HL" in quotation marks because that is what Pittsburgh  
Railways and Westinghouse called it and not because it bore any  
resemblance to the traditional Westinghouse HL control.   The H  
merely indicated that the progression through the notches was  
controlled by hand by the motorman.   AL would have been automatic  
progression, hence the letter A.   The L indicated that the control  
voltage was supplied from the trolley wire through dropping resistors  
to get a lower voltage.   If batteries were used, the letter B would  
appear instead of the L.

What most Westinghouse remote control schemes had in common was the  
use of pneumatic (air) unit switches to control the 600 volt  
circuits; these unit switches were mounted in a case under the car  
and operated from the controller by low-voltage circuits.   The  
reason I used the quotation marks was that the Pittsburgh scheme used  
magnetic solenoid switches instead of pneumatic switches which  
parallels the General Electric type M design but it was manufactured  
by the local builder.    The only significant difference was GE used  
600 volt low-amperage circuits to control their solenoid switches  
whereas Westinghouse was using low-voltage lines.

The car in the picture is also one of the vast majority of the double- 
end, low floor cars that remained as low-speed (about 25 mph) cars.

The car we are remanufacturing at PTM, i.e. 4398, was one that was  
rebuilt with K-35 control.   It is also one of the ten that were  
rebuilt as high speed cars (about 37.5 mph tops).   Why did the  
museum save a high speed 4300?  Because the railways company kept the  
ten high speed double-end cars for an extra couple of years for  
emergency use after the transfer lines were all abandoned and all the  
low-speed cars were scrapped.   By 1956 PRC decided is was easier to  
marshall buses in an emergency than move low-floor cars around ...  
probably because they no longer had regular operators being trained  
to run them.

One thing I always wonder was:   Did the "HL" double end cars use  
components salvaged from the Jones cars or did they buy all new  
equipment?   I have no answer.   Essentially the apparatus matches  
the 5000s, 5100s, 5200s and 3750s without the couplers.

So if you buy a double-end car from Leonid Khokhin, now you know you  
have to be careful about what boxes you put under it.   I ignored the  
problem ... I just bought a single-end MU train, and one single end  
non MU car.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jim Holland <prcopcc at p-r-co.com>
> Date: January 1, 2007 2:06:07 AM EST
> To: - 1714 PRCo__WP__JTC - <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Subject: [PRCo] Tylerdale___2
> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>
> Enclosed is a photo of 4354 on the Jefferson & Maiden at the Tylerdale
> terminal.       DATE____UNKNOWN    but    'Possibly'    same as 1707
> --  mood looks the same.       The photo of 1707 was on the curve  
> behind 
> 4354 car heading north!
>
>
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 312k (320074 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/4354% 
> 2036+%20JM%20096%20Unk.jpg
>
>
>