[PRCo]

[Fred Schneider]

Continuing the discussion of Pittsburgh Railways and its dependence  
on single-end cars ...

The wye at Wilmerding was not installed until December 11, 1929.    
Until then all of the route 87 regular cars and trippers had to be  
double-end.   And remember that route 62 used double-end cars until  
after West Penn quit.

Route 87 was a very heavy route.   Today's youngster's think of East  
Liberty, Homewood, Brushton, Wilkinsburg as rather nondescript places  
to live.  However, until the migration to the burbs after World War  
II, these were solid blue collar neighborhoods and route 87 Ardmore  
ran any type of car during World War II that would turn a wheel ...  
double end, single end, high speed, low speed, PCCs ... whatever was  
in the barn and would run.   That comment came from Dick Bowker when  
I was doing the PCC book.   The war time rush hour headway to take  
the guys to Westinghouse Electric in East Pittsburgh and Westinghouse  
Air Brake in Wilmerding was about every 2 minutes.   And you wondered  
why they needed spacing signals on the private right-of-way through  
Forest Hills!

I suspect that the installation of the wye had nothing to do with  
consolidating routes 86 East Liberty with 87 Ardmore because that did  
not take place until 1937.

I think it just shows that by 1929 they had made the decision that  
single-end was better where it was possible to use them ... cost less  
to maintain and they seated about 13 more people in a 45' body.

There was probably also the recognition that the newer single end  
cars had K-35 or HL control that was brand new and the double end  
cars still had obsolete Jones control with was slippery and tended to  
burn out motors.    What we do not know is when PRC converted the low  
4200s, high 4300s, the 4700s and some of those other scattered high  
42s and low 43s from Jones to other control schemes.   We do know  
that a lot were scrapped with them in the 1930s (pictures of Denglers  
are the proof) so that the conversion of lines from double end to  
single end also got rid of cars with obsolete control that they  
didn't want.  P. N. Jones was dead by then and I suspect no one cared  
for his legacy.

Anyone with knowledge who can refute my suspicions, please squeak up!

+++++++++++++++

By the way, did anyone see the piece on PBS television tonight on  
Braddock and Pittsburgh?   Great piece on urban gardening on empty  
lots.   Someone had calculated that there were over 1,700 empty lots  
in Pittsburgh where houses had been demolished.   (300,000 people  
divided by 4 persons per family fives 70,000 housing units that don't  
exist today.  I wonder where they got the 1700 number?   Are there a  
lot of empty apartments?    There was a real flaw in the show.   The  
commentator said that Pittsburgh's population has sunk from 1 million  
to 300,000.   I think it was more like 650,000 down to 330,000.   But  
if you count the drop in Pittsburgh, McKees Rocks, Homestead,  
Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding, Millvale, Etna, Turtle Creek,  
etc., the loss in the old near-in mill towns and Pittsburgh could  
easily be a million people.