[PRCo] Re: Reliefs

[Herb Brannon]

Local 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, that local which represents PATransit operators, had a clause in the labor agreement concerning "remote" relief points. Basically, the operator would be paid for getting to the remote relief point via public transit from the operating division. However, PATransit would dictate the public transit routes and times to the operator. For instance, once I made a downtown relief on the Squirell Hill Limited Bus (green destination sign, when destination signs could have different background colors to represent different classes/types of service) at Forbes and Market. This route worked out of East Liberty division. On my 'day card' right at the top was a paragraph which stated, "Take Rt. 76 leaving 5th/Penn at 12:37pm. Arrive 5th/Market at 1:15pm. Make relief, Blk XXX, at 1:22pm Forbes/Mkt". As long as the operator used the correct bus/car to make the relief he/she could not be charged with a 'miss'. PAT also had remote relief points where
 a "NSV" would be used. NSV means Non Service Vehicle, or simply, a bus signed up OUT OF SERVICE on the destination sign. I never knew of trolleys to be used for NSV reliefs, only buses at bus divisions. There was not a change of passengers. The operator going ON duty would take over the in-service bus and the operator going OFF duty would take the NSV bus back to the division. I don't know if trolleys were ever used for distant reliefs or not. They would probably get in the way and it would take a long time to get back to the car house do to finding a turning loop or trackage that could be used for turning a NSV trolley to get it back to the division. If the trolley runs did do pull-out/pull-in then I'm sure the operator coming off-duty would complete a trip to the end of the line, then pull in to the car house. Likewise, the operator going on-duty would take the car to one end or the other and start revenue service. This seems like the way to do this operation with
 streetcars since extra NSV trolleys on any line would get in the way of regular service cars.
prcopcc at p-r-co.com wrote:  > John Swindler writes:
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> .......
> For South Hills, most occurred at Tunnel, of course.
> If it was an outbound relief, the car might pull around
> the administration building. 
> But that only happened occasionally.
.
Only time I ever saw this was after ({[pat]}) took over and then because 
there was a car change out. Sending the 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42 behind 
the admin building would confuse one large set of passengers. Even have 
photos of cars displaying Charleroi or Washington making relief On The Main. 
In fact, it is in the video PTM put out a decade or so ago.
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> There is a vague recollection that the Second Ave. routes did
> pull-outs and pull-ins when shifted to Tunnel in early 60s. 
> But this is a Sunday/Holiday recollection. Maybe there were
> street reliefs during weekdays????????
.
Once moved to tunnel all these cars would have to pull out and pull in here 
of course but it would be very strange for a motorman to pull out a car for 
a relief and then have to meet the relief car and transfer passengers. It 
would seem that All Reliefs would be on the road unless a car change out was 
needed for some reason.
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Jim__Holland
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I....Like....IKE__---__And....PCCs!
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down...with...pantographs.......
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UP___WITH___TROLLEYPOLES!!! 






Herb Brannon