[PRCo]

[Fred Schneider]

The original message was posted by Bob Vogel to Philly Traction at  
yahoogroups and shows pictures he took of the reopened Mattapan- 
Ashmont service in Boston on Monday.   I find it amazing that those  
PCC cars are still soldiering on 65 years after they were built but  
the Boeing Vertol cars built in the 1980s have long since been  
retired.    Are these really PCC cars?   Russ Jackson quipped that  
they were PCC-D for degraded.  They no longer meet the original  
performance specification ... they only are capable of about 25 miles  
per hour.  As I recall they do not use field weakening today after  
all resistance is cut out.   And they have solid steel wheels instead  
of resilient wheels because of an alleged inability to maintain the  
shunts around the rubber wheel sandwiches which were needed not only  
to ground the car 's electrical system but more importantly for  
signal protection.   So Fred the Third would not call them PCCs.
He would be more likely to consider a car that was more advanced than  
a PCC a PCC but certainly not one that had stepped backward into the  
shadows.

photographed on Monday
Ashmont station
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040070

Mattapan terminal
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040196
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040197
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040198
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040199

interior
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040200

Ashmont loop
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040071
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040072
http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1040073


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