[PRCo] Disabling failures

[Fred Schneider]

I just found the following notes ... attribution unknown ...

Average Interval between Pull-ins Chargeable to Equipment Failures
January to June 1927

New Orleans Public Service   649,283 miles
Nashville (Tennessee Elec. Pwr. Co.) 167,568 miles
Atlanta (Georgia Power Co.)   51,131 miles
Little Rock, Ark. (Capitol Trac. Co. ) 40, 878 miles
Knoxville, TN   32, 916 miles
Birmingham Elec. Co., Alabama  18,040 miles
Texas Electric Railway  19,174 miles
Cincinnati, Newport & Covington  16,039 miles

PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS CO.   15,547 MILES

Dallas Railway & Terminal  15,255 miles
Mobile, Alabama  16,342 miles
Memphis, Tennessee  11,893 miles
* Charlotte, N. C.  9,490 miles
* Virginia Elec. & Power Co., Richmond  7,808 miles
* Louisville, Ky.  6,358 miles
* Montgomery, Ala.   5,604 miles
* Chattanooga (Tennessee Elec. & Power) 4,066 miles


I had made a note at the time that everything above Montgomery was  
better than anything at the time I copied it ... probably in the  
1970s.   Those with asterisks (Charlotte and below) were worse than  
TTC after it rehabilitated the PCC cars in 1975.    SEPTA about this  
time was averaging about 500 miles between road failures.    And when  
I did the PCC books in the late 1970s New Orleans had one disabling  
failure in one year other than a tree than fell in a storm and  
knocked down the trolley wire on a car, which in turn burnt a hole in  
the roof of the car.   Somehow, from 1927 right up until New Orleans  
RTA took over, they were tops in maintenance in the U. S.   Then it  
fell apart.   Pretty darn hard to beat  close to 2/3rds of a million  
miles between breakdowns!

You also need to recognize what equipment each company was  
running ... In 1927 Pittsburgh Railway had a off peak fleet that was  
probably under 10 years in age.   The 400s, 800s and 900s in New  
Orleans were younger than that.

No, I don't have a clue what the source was.   I wish it had a few  
more large cities in it like Philadelphia, Chicago, Brooklyn, Boston  
and San Francisco.