[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh Railways Vol One by Gordon Beal
Schneider Fred
fwschneider at comcast.net
Fri Oct 10 10:57:44 EDT 2008
Ronald
On Oct 10, 2008, at 7:15 AM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:
> "Gordon?"
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
> Schneider Fred
> Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 1:00 AM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Pittsburgh Railways Vol One by Gordon Beal
>
> Those of you who have a copy of Gordon Beal's First Book on Pittsburgh
> Railways may wish to print this out as a partial errata sheet. It
> is by no
> means complete and represents only those items I found on a cursory
> reading.
>
> Page 12: Mr Beal continues to perpetuate the illusion that the 62
> 1/2 inch gauge was to keep freight trains off city streets in spite
> of the
> fact that Ed Lybarger did some rather extensive research on this
> subject and
> published it in Trolley Fare several years before
> Beal published his book. There were a wide variety of gauges, at
> least three common wide gauges 62 11/4, 62 1/2 and 63 inches within
> Pennsylvania.
>
> Page 50, Para. 5: I fail to comprehend how the distance between
> North Avenue and the Perrysville Plank Road on Federal Street can be
> 3.5 miles. Other sources say the line might have gone as far as the
> original Brashear observatory which was part of the university
> complex that
> was later moved to Oakland. This still isn't a mile.
>
> Page 133: Lower Photo credit should be University of Pittsburgh,
> Archives
> of an Industrial Society.
>
> Page 161: Definition of reason for high floor car is absurd. All
> one needs to do its look at the picture he published and see the
> clearance
> between theground and the resistors, compressor and air
> tanks to realize that was not the reason for the floor height. The
> real reason was the size of the low speed motors used on those
> cars. That was thoroughly documented in all the trade journals
> starting in 1913.
>
> Page 169: Instruction car 4405 did not have low speed and high speed
> controls. Impossible. The speed was a function of the motors.
> The car, however, had both a drum controller on one end and HL-remote
> control on the other end. It also had a self-lapping brake valve on
> one end and a manually lapped valve on the other. Therefore an
> operator who ran it would understand any possible low floor car he
> could
> ever receive except those with Jones or Westinghouse VA control.
>
> Page 174: Double deck cars were used basically on the Highland
> Routes? He should read the route cards. They were used on one
> line only except during a period of street construction.
>
> Page 178: One needs to drive around the city to locate where the
> picture
> was taken on this page and once you do, then you will not
> suggest it was for the inaugural date of MU operation on route 82.
> The picture was taken on Forbes Avenue at Wilkinsburg Junction (or
> Braddock
> Avenue, however you want to know the intersection) ... it is where
> route 67
> split off routes 64 and 66. It is no where near the
> 82 line. The people in the doorway are company officials. Our
> late friend Tom Phillips recognized one of the people as a relative
> of his who was a company treasurer. The route cards do not show MU
> operation on route 82 however I have one acquaintance who claims he
> rode MU cars on that line. The route cards also do not show MU cars
> on 37. Both lines, however, had trailers. Route 88 Frankstown used
> MU cars only from Dec. 10, 1924 until March 8, 1925.
>
> Ibid: Beal claims there were only 243 city MU cars. Because the
> 3750s were
> rapidly withdrawn from the interurbans and put on Sewickley and Castle
> Shannon, I would increase that number to 263.
>
> Ibid: The Invention of MU control on the Chicago South Side Elevated
> Railway by Frank J. Sprague was 1897, not 1895. Westinghouse
> followed with their version for Brooklyn in 1898.
>
> Ibid: Under Six Motor Trains, last line, where he writes, "And the
> system
> offered a lot of flexibility, as each car could also be run
> independently."
> He should point out that the trailer only had a hand brake and a
> single
> point hostling control to allow it to be inched up
> to the motor car. It could not be run out on the line. That
> scheme was only to allow it to be run in the yard.
>
> Page 182 Under general specifications: Jones cars were not limited
> to HL or K-43 control. The double-end cars, converted trailers,
> 4700s, were built with Jones remote control. Those cars designed
> to pull
> motorized trailers, i.e. the 4800s and 4900s and I think the
> 5500s had K-43. The 5400s had K-35KK. The 5000s, 5100s, 5200s and
> 3750s had something made by Westinghouse called HL but it was
> really a knock
> off of General Electric type M. Some 4700s later got
> Westinghouse variable automatic (VA). Anything that had Jones and
> was rebuilt got either HL or some form of K-control. In other
> words, there
> were not two versions of control as he wrote but five.
>
> Page 183 Westinghouse HL was never an automatic acceleration
> controller.
> The letter H in the generic designation stands for H
> controlled progression. Westinghouse schemes with automatic
> progression used the letter A, such as AL or AB or ABLFM or ABF or
> ALF.
>
> Page 185 He suggests in line 2 that the railways were intimidated by
> motor buses. Au contraire. The railways used them to survive and
> preserve the corporations for many more years. They were worried
> about the automobile and they knew it. (In partial recognition that
> Pittsburgh was different, many of the independent must companies that
> competed with PRC developed from jitney operators around World War
> I but if
> that is what he meant, he should have said so.)
>
> Page line 185 para 3: The VA control cars had hand control from
> the gitgo.
>
> Page 185 Para 4: The trucks were similar in only that they were
> inside frame trucks.
>
> Page 185, Para 7: Balancing speed in the Electric Railway Journal
> was listed as 37 miles per hour (not 40). The 15 to 24 miles per
> hour up hill is meaningless because he fails to specify the car
> load and the
> gradient.
>
> Page 185, Last Para: He claims that 413 cars became high speed and
> 286 remained low speed. That totals 699 out of 618 cars.
>
> Page 187, Para. 2: The word triple valve suggests that perhaps he
> does not understand air systems. A triple valve is device used on
> automatic air brake systems. Those systems are used only on
> railroads, subway and elevated trains, and interurban railways that
> operated long trains (CNS&M, CSS&SB, CA&E). The triple valve under
> each car sense changes in the brake pipe pressure and if the pressure
> increases, it releases the brakes and charges the reservoirs under
> each car. If the pressure drops because the engineer made a brake
> reduction, then it takes air from the car reservoirs and feeds it
> into the
> brake cylinder. Triple means three pipes essentially --
> brake pipe, reservoir, cylinder. Streetcars with straight air
> systems generally do not have triple valves.
>
> Page 187: Here he claims that Dan Bell invented the Westinghouse
> 514PR motor. I doubt it.
>
> Page 259: Upper photograph was from a Kodachrome slide by Russell E.
> Jackson.
>
> Page 262: Upper photo was taken by John Bromley and, according to
> John, was
> used without permission.
>
> Page 266: Only certain rush hours on route 7 (trippers) short turned
> at Brightridge (Brighton Place). That was not made clear.
>
> Page 269: Route 8 was not extended to Keating Car House when PCCs
> came in 1940. He missed that by 14 years. The route cards claim
> the company believed it happened February 19, 1926. It did not
> happen when
> Keating opened but shortly thereafter, probably to eliminate
> congestion at
> Perrysville and East streets.
>
> Page 273: Upper Photo appeared in one of the PCC books by Schneider
> and Carlson. It was copyrighted by Fred Schneider. The copyright
> is filed in the Library of Congress. Beal copied it from the PCC
> book and used it without asking for permission.
>
> Page 275: He claims that Route 9, a short turn of route 8 was
> eliminated in 1951. He is confusing Route 9, the tripper version of
> route 8 that lasted until 1926 with the Charles Street Shuttle
> which was
> later given the number 9 after the service on Perrysville Avenue
> no longer required it. There is evidence that the Charles Street
> cars were extended to Milroy St. on the same day in 1926 that the
> Perrysville cars were extended from East Street to Keating Car
> House. When the company simply decided to use all those double end
> cars with the 9 CHARLES roll signs on Charles Street, a very logical
> idea, was not recorded in the route cards. It didn't matter.
>
> Page 278: Upper photo should have been credited to Edward S. Miller.
>
> Page 334, Upper Photo appeared in one of the PCC books by Schneider
> and Carlson. It was copyrighted by Fred Schneider. The copyright
> is filed in the Library of Congress. Beal copied it from the PCC
> book and used it without asking for permission.
>
> Page 344: Upper photo was copied out of one of the Schneider and
> Carlson
> PCC books ... you can see the Benday pattern where the two
> engraving screens collided. The photo should have been credited to
> Edward S. Miller.
>
> Page 350, Photo appeared in one of the PCC books by Schneider and
> Carlson. It was copyrighted by Fred Schneider. The copyright is
> filed in the Library of Congress. Beal copied it from the PCC book
> and used it without asking for permission.
>
> Page 344: Upper photo was copied out of one of the Schneider and
> Carlson
> PCC books ... you can see the Benday pattern where the two
> engraving screens collided. The photo should have been credited to
> John Stern. The same applies to the upper photo on page 361.
>
> Page 374: Upper photo should have been credited to Edward S. Miller.
>
> Page 375, Upper photo appeared in one of the PCC books by Schneider
> and Carlson. It was copyrighted by Fred Schneider. The copyright
> is filed in the Library of Congress. Beal copied it from the PCC
> book and used it without asking for permission.
>
> Page 377, Photo appeared in one of the PCC books by Schneider and
> Carlson. It was copyrighted by Fred Schneider. The copyright is
> filed in the Library of Congress. Beal copied it from the PCC book
> and used it without asking for permission.
>
> Page 382: Westinghouse cars were never assigned to Ingram
> Carhouse. The 1111 was out there on a fantrip. Would have been
> nice if that had been noted.
>
> Page 385: Car 1630 was assigned to Tunnel and was running as a
> fantrip.
> Would have been nice to have noted this.
>
> Page 392: See comment for page 385.
>
> Page 413: For much of its life, route 32 ran from West End Circle
> to Smithfield Street. Ed Miller has pictures of cars at West End
> Circle in 1952 possibly disproving the routing listed on this page.
>
> Page 415: The photo of 4411 on this page is a C. J. Dengler photo
> from the Miller Library. It was taken long after route 33 quit
> running. One can only suspect that Dengler turned the roll sign.
> It is still in its unrebuilt two-man Jones control configuration in
> the
> 1940s.
>
> Page 434: Lower photo may have been borrowed from Miller Library,
> PTM.
>
> Page 436: Lower photo may have been borrowed from Miller Library,
> PTM. It was taken by Charles Dengler.
>
> Page 440: Lower photo was taken by Fred Schneider. Used without
> permission. It was previously published in Headlights magazine.
> Upper photo may have been borrowed from Miller
> Library,
> PTM. That is where I've seen the negative.
>
> Page 441: An original print of this is in the Miller Library, PTM.
>
> Page 464: I suspect the MU was greatly over emphasized. It was
> abolished before the 5100s were received. The company was already
> converting to one-man operation at the same time it was buying
> multiple unit cars. A train of MU cars required two people. Two
> one-man cars required two people. There was no labor saving. The
> ignored the plan.
>
> Page 479: In this case I admit to picking nits. He claims that
> Schenley Park had no trolleys. The picture on page 107 is
> technically within the park boundary on land that I think later
> became part
> of Carnegie Mellon University.
>
> Page 481: Beal claims that trailers were operated Dream City Park.
> If they were, Pittsburgh Railways neither recorded the use of the
> cars nor
> the crew hours in the route cards. Therefore I suspect that
> trailers were
> not used.
>
> Page 482: Mr. Beal claims West View Park was the last amusement park
> in the United States which you could reach by trolley cars. Perhaps
> he does not consider light rail cars to have any relationship to
> trolley cars. You can ride the San Jose light rail to Great America
> amusement park. You can also ride Denver RTD to Elitch Gardens.
> http://www.elitchgardens.com/ If subways count, there is still a
> roller coaster at Coney Island in Brooklyn.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
More information about the Pittsburgh-railways
mailing list