[PRCo] Re: SE DE

Sat May 17 09:07:52 EDT 2008

Congestion on city streets was increasing as were the headways of all streetcar routes in the early 20th Century. A streetcar line, operating with double-end cars and a "tight" (meaning frequency on the line of five minutes or less between vehicles) headway, encountered a problem at the end of the line. The double-end car required trolley poles to be changed, seats to be reversed and operator controls to be moved to the new head end of the car. On a line with a three minute headway cars would be stacked up waiting to reverse and head back the new direction. Most of the time these cars were stacked up in the middle of a busy street. With the turnaround loop there was a smooth and continuous flow of streetcars and blocking of streets was kept to the minimum. A single-end car was also easier to justify the change from a two man to one man crew on routes carrying heavy passenger loads. 
Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:   The point I'm trying to make is that grade school teachers might ask 
you when was the U. S. Civil War or what event started it (1861-1865, 
or the firing on Fort Sumpter) but your college history professor is 
going to asking you what were the root causes of the civil war? 
Over what was it fought? (States rights or the right of all men and 
women to be free?)

That was the same type of argument I was addressing? It is easy to 
see what Pittsburgh Railways did. That is an elementary school 
question. They bought trolley cars. They bought double truck cars 
mostly after 1905, and mostly single end cars after 1909. But I am 
asking you to try to look at all the available information and try to 
answer why. Look at it from the university perspective. Take this 
beyond the usual I love trolleys issue into a business question. 
I'm asking you to push the bar up a little.

That was all I was doing.

No, we cannot today go ask those people. They're not there. I 
didn't have the sense to ask them when I could have. Young teen 
agers don't have that kind of sense. So we are left with 
circumstantial evidence. We can look at the route cards. We can 
look at motor vehicle registrations. We can look at the car 
roster. We can look at the one way street orders issued by the 
Department of Public Streets. We can look at the streets. 
Eventually we may just get enough information to make a judgement 
that is rational.

Why did Pittsburgh Railways "upgrade" the interurbans? It would be 
hard to say that they even upgraded them. The 3700s and 3800s were 
junk. It might be easier to say that they "renewed" the equipment 
and they did so because Tom Fitzgerald falsely thought that there was 
hope for the future. He was looking in the early 1940s at how much 
business was there because of people moving to the suburbs and 
confusing it with added business because of the war. So they put 
new cars on the lines in 1949 and made a decision to abandon them 
three years later because the business had disappeared. Was it a 
bad decision? They were able to use the 1600s elsewhere. They 
were also able to use the 1700s on Drake and Library. It was bad 
but probably in light of the fact that they were able to salvage the 
equipment and use it elsewhere and the fact that they got 22 years 
out of the 1000s and 1100s, 24 years out of the 1200s, 22 years out 
of the 1400s, and PAT got 22 years out of the 1500s and the design 
life of a PCC was about 20 years, I guess the decision wasn't too bad 
all in all. I was told in the early 1950s by Mr. Donohue in Public 
Relations that they still wanted to buy more PCCs but the price was 
simply beyond what they could afford. Buses by then were the only 
logical choice. Ah, so up until 1953 or 1954 they still wanted to 
replace the oldest cars with newer cars. Or at least they gave some 
lip service to it.

But PRC also got nearly 30 years out of the newest yellow cars.

So they probably got 600,000 to 700,000 miles out of a typical early 
PCC and closer to a million miles out of some of those low-floor cars.

There were a lot worse decisions like buying PCCs in Minneapolis in 
1946, 1947 and 1949 and dumping them on Mexico City in 1953.

On May 16, 2008, at 6:05 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> To the Group:
>
>
> 'Specifics' I mention must be taken in context within that 
> paragraph mustn't it. I inadvertently overlooked the 4400s but 
> that is small potatoes - that specific wasn't needed in the overall 
> assessment was it. I was speaking generally.
>
> As to Why SE Mr.Schneider? I don't know do I. You mention that 
> car cards are very incomplete. PRC didn't keep records for 
> historians nor railfans did they but rather for daily operations 
> where necessary. One would probably have to deduce SE purchases 
> from a myriad of documents to get this answer and that would be 
> open to interpretation wouldn't it without a valid verifiable PRC 
> statement saying: "We bought SE equipment because _______."
>
> Why did PRC upgrade the Interurbans with specially equipped PCCs? 
> Not unlike Mr.Swindler's question as to why any property purchased 
> PCCs post war.
>
> Still an interesting subject isn't it.
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Edward H. Lybarger 
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:46:04 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE
>>
>> And yet they said that very thing. We just don't yet know why.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf 
>> Of Fred
>> Schneider
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:46 PM
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE
>>
>> Sure they're needed. Companies simply don't make decisions in a
>> vacuum. They don't say, "Hey, from now on we're going to buy 
>> single- end
>> cars." They weigh all sorts of factors ... construction costs,
>> revenue gains and losses, real estate costs, political gains. It is
>> all part of the story of Pittsburgh Railways in the teens and 
>> twenties and
>> until you know why, you don't understand the company.
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 14, 2008, at 4:10 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
>>
>>> Specifics aren't needed are they -- 4400s DE were purchased as 
>>> well
>>> - folder is stored again so don't have dates available - small 
>>> number.
>>>
>>> Why? Why indeed! More efficient operation with sE?
>>>
>>>
>>> Phil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Fred Schneider
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org; Phillip Clark Campbell
>>>>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 1:04:50 PM
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE
>>>>
>>>> All except trippers went to Wilmerding.
>>>>
>>>> The 4700s were 1917 and delivered in 1918. You forgot the 4420s.
>>>>
>>>> But you are still not addressing why?
>>>>
>>>> On May 14, 2008, at 3:55 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Another way to look at this is dates of equipment purchases isn't
>>>>> it.
>>>>>
>>>>> 4000s & 4100s -- SE High Floor -- 1910--1911
>>>>>
>>>>> 4200--4399 -- DE low floor 1914--1917
>>>>>
>>>>> 4700s thru 5500s -- SE low floor -- 1916--1926
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems that SE was the vehicle of choice by 1920, even earlier.
>>>>>
>>>>> DE equipment was used as needed but loops / wyes were constructed
>>>>> on DE routes over time. As DE equipment aged and loops / 
>>>>> wyes
>>>>> built the DE equipment was phased out.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>>>> From: Phillip Clark Campbell
>>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 12:17:36 PM
>>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To the List: In 1928 PRC made its last purchase of equipment
>>>>>> before the PCCs,
>>>>>> the 15 St.Louis SE Interurbans. Equipment purchases 'by PRC'
>>>>>> were 72% SE;
>>>>>> inherited equipment made up bulk of DE cars. It would seem that
>>>>>> PRC made up its mind well before 1929 since by 1925 they had
>>>>>> purchased predominantly SE cars.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Did all 87-Ardmore trips go to Wilmerding or did some turn in 
>>>>>> E.Pgh
>>>>>> on city street loops? Yes - given that DE routes existed, 62 one
>>>>>> of them along with 99, 12, (1,4,5 - not sure how/when these got
>>>>>> loops,) 29, 38A, Washington & Donora locals, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Phil
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>>>>> From: Fred Schneider
>>>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>>>> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 5:47:48 PM
>>>>>>> Subject: [PRCo]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----------------
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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