[PRCo] Re: Streetcar Loops

[Fred Schneider]

Ed is absolutely correct.   I love his terminology ... scribe de  
jour.   One scribe will comment on a delay caused by a broken axle  
that caused cars to be diverted.   What that tells us is not every  
broken axle but how fast they could fix them on the street when they  
needed to.

The do not show every time a low floor car was installed, nor do they  
show every time a double truck car was installed.   But you can get  
an inkling to the latter by looking at the number of cars scheduled  
on a given route.   They are not 100% accurate in telling us when one- 
man cars were put on lines but they are pretty good at showing total  
car hours and total platform hours, so we can deduce when the one-man  
conversions started and when the finished the job on each line.

But Philip and all the rest of you, is the job of a historian not to  
look at as many facts as we have and arrive at conclusions from  
them?   Hopefully we will make the correct assumptions without making  
the proverbial ass out of you and me.   Sadly, sometimes we look  
right at the answer and never see it because, like the scribe de  
jour, we too are only human beings.   And, it is also our job to  
present what we know in a timely manner and not wait until the last  
veteran of the Civil War dies before stating our case so that no one  
can contest what we say.

Fred3

On May 20, 2008, at 3:45 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> The "car cards" are quite incomplete because no one had the  
> foresight to
> collect more than a handful of them!  They no longer exist except  
> for those
> few.
>
> The route cards, on the other hand, were intended to be a complete  
> history
> of events of and affecting the various routes of the company.    
> That there
> are omissions and occasionally errors is simply testimony to the  
> fact that
> humans will sometimes screw up, regardless of the best intentions.   
> It also
> has to do with priorities...the scribe du jour may not think the  
> same thing
> is noteworthy that yesterday's writer would have included.  And the  
> scribe
> may also have been preoccupied with something on any given day, so  
> an item
> may not have made it into the record.
>
> If we don't interpret the available evidence with the best  
> knowledge we can
> put behind it, we will have failed the future.  I'm not sure that  
> the court
> system cares a hang about that any more as long as someone is  
> enriched.  But
> that's not our purpose as historians.
>
> Ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of  
> Phillip
> Clark Campbell
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 3:23 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Streetcar Loops
>
> Mr.Schneider did say just the other day that the 'car cards' of PRC  
> were
> quite incomplete didn't he; why should we think that the route  
> cards were
> any different?  PRC didn't keep records for historians nor railfans  
> did
> they; what they entered 'for the record' was what seemed expedient or
> important for the moment.  The best we can say today is:  "The PRC  
> record
> shows..."  and those items are not necessarily ''the' facts' but  
> 'may' be
> considered 'best evidence' until more information is available.  As  
> with the
> court system it would be a preponderance of evidence, not one piece of
> evidence, which determines the 'apparent' facts.
>
> With all that it seems the 'preponderance of evidence' according to
> equipment orders 1910-1928 strongly suggests the intention of SE  
> operations
> as time / money / real estate / etc. / etc. / etc.  permitted.  PRC  
> had not
> a small amount of DE equipment which was 'young' and a good  
> business person
> would desire to get the best value from that equipment.
>
> I have often seen comments in the archives about this being an  
> 'imperfect
> world' haven't I - thus pure SE operations would seem elusive even  
> with the
> best of intentions.  It did eventually happen though didn't it!
>
>
> http://www.davesrailpix.com/boston/htm/bos184.htm - shows an ex- 
> Dallas DE in
> Boston without one trolley pole; as I mentioned earlier these cars  
> were
> eventually SE weren't they.
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Ken & Tracie <ktjosephson at embarqmail.com>
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Cc: SCOTT GREIG <m1903a1 at sbcglobal.net>; Charles Brown
>> <Charlesebrown at webtv.net>
>> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2008 9:37:42 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Streetcar Loops
>>
>> For the most part, I've given up trying to confuse people with the  
>> facts.
>
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