[PRCo] Re: Car 1600

[Ken and Tracie]

While we're on the subject of orphans, when did Boston and Baldy-moe 
sideline their oddball St. Louis Car Company PCCs? I seem to recall reading 
that Boston nicknamed theirs the "Queen Mary."

K.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:43 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Car 1600


> But there were always weird things that did survive.   How about
> Brooklyn and Queens 1010, the PCC which has a General Motors bus
> ventilation cowl above the destination sign.   It ran that way right
> up until the end of service in 1956.
>
> Los Angeles had two experimental Peter Witt cars (2601 and 2602) that
> had Westinghouse VA and General Electric PCM control.   There were no
> other cars in L. A. like them.   I think they were built about 1929
> or 1930.   Surprisingly, they both lasted long enough that 2601 wound
> up at Orange Empire.   I've had a chance to run it.
>
> But the general rule is the orphan isn't appreciated anywhere.
>
> Look at the Pennsylvania Railroad.   Down at Wilmington Shops in the
> 1956 I found all sorts of stange electric locomotives that were there
> because it was easier to have them sitting out of service than keep
> them running ... the O1 class, the single R-1.   The experimental
> E2b, E2c and E3b motors disappeared as soon as the E44 motors
> arrived.   The single R-1 ran for many years on the Broadway Limited
> because i only made a few stops and acceleration wasn't important ...
> I think after leaving New York it might have stopped at Newark,
> Philadelpia, Paoli and then Harrisburg.   But by the time I moved
> east in 1949 it was already considered an orphan.
>
> The only oddball on the Pennsy that had any longevity was a single
> DD-1 electric locomotive that was still around until about 1967 or
> 68.   It was needed to pull the wire trains through the Hudson River
> tunnels ... there were no ventilation fans and the bores have third
> rail for maintenance equipment.    Once the Penn Central was created,
> then a newer T motor came down from Harmon to replace the 1909-1910
> DD-1 at Sunnyside.
>
> Like Los Angeles, Baltimore had two Peter Witt cars built in 1924.
> They didn't last very long.   If memory serves, the numbers were
> 6991-6992.   Anyone who has the Baltimore semi-convertible book (the
> one with the green cover) can look them up.  The fare collection
> scheme served as a pattern for 150 cars in 1930 except that the 1930
> cars came at the wrong time ... it was the Depression and all the
> conductors were fired.
>
> If we were to look at York Railways, they bought the Osgood Bradley
> Electromobile demonstrator in 1929.   It was, curiously, numbered
> 1929 by the builder and it carried that same number in York.   In
> fact the Pennsylvania owner never repainted it.   It ran as a rush
> hour extra car on the Wrightsville line.   Well, come 1932 York
> Railways abandoned the York-York Haven and East York - Wrightsville
> services.   Now at that point there were a lot of surplus cars  ...
> probably six or seven.   The Electromobile became a hanger queen for
> the next seven years.   It appeared on the for sale list in 1939 when
> the final abandonment took place but no one bought it.
>
> And how about the 1927 Brill Master Unit demonstrator?   Key System
> (East Bay Street Railway) bought it and it had just about as stirring
> a career as the York car.   I've never seen a railfan picture of it
> in revenue service because it didn't last long enough for the
> railfans to chase it.     Brill also built a single truck version and
> it had even a worse reception ... no one bought it ... it sat behind
> the Brill plant in Philadelphia and was eventually scrapped.
>
> And to bring the thread back to Pittsburgh, how about those late
> 1920s experimentals.   As soon as PRC had enough modern equipment to
> allow scrapping the trailers, they sure didn't need 6000, 6001 and
> 6002 either.   It was probably either the 1000s or 1100s that
> replaced the very last trailers and high floor tow cars in 1937 (hard
> to tell which because tens and elevens were both being delivered that
> year and they were running trailers into 1937 on 13, 15, and out of
> Ingram on 27 or 25 (I would have to look at the route cards to be
> sure which).   The experimentals were scrapped in 1940 ... did the
> 1200s replace them or were they just sitting idle?  Not knowing
> otherwise, I would bet the company kept them in reserve hoping for an
> upturn in business and then when the bought the 1200s simply said we
> can get rid of them now and also scrap some 4700s and 4300s and 4250s
> and mothball some low-speed 5100s too.
>
>
> On Jul 12, 2009, at 10:36 PM, Ken and Tracie wrote:
>
>> I understand the situation, Fred. Milwaukee did the opposite of PAT
>> during
>> the last few years of trackless trolley operation. The last of
>> their newest
>> Pullman-Standard Trolley coaches were Westinghouse equipped and the
>> majority
>> of the postwar fleet were General Electric. So the Westinghouse P-S
>> coaches
>> were put out to pasture about two years before the last lines were
>> dieselized.
>>
>> 1600 was neither a 1700 nor a 1601 & up car. I'm sure PAT would have
>> rejected it had it not been destroyed by fire. Heck, they rejected
>> 1630,
>> which had lost its ventilation roof system and carried a pre-war
>> trolley
>> pole base cowl.
>>
>> K.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 7:24 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Car 1600
>>
>>
>>> All sorts of places, Ken.  I had my St. Petersburg model painted for
>>> 76 Hamilton which matches one of the pictures in the Westinghouse
>>> advertising book.   I know it worked out of Homewood in the beginning
>>> and it was there at the end ... or it was there for work at the
>>> end.   Bromley has a picture of it on 22 CROSSTOWN ... that suggests
>>> it was assigned either to Herron Hill or Manchester for a while.
>>> I've seen pictures of it at Kennywood on route 68 ... guess it must
>>> have been at Craft for a while.   And I've seen pictures of it
>>> working on the Sousside.    Suspect it migrated around every time a
>>> carbarn foreman got tired of it.
>>>
>>> Was it a bad car?  Not really.   Not any different from a Johnstown
>>> car.   After they quit running the guts were incorporated into new
>>> cars in Brussels and those were still around when I rode them in the
>>> 1980s.   It is simply that every time you inflict a single oddball
>>> vehicle on a repair shop or a motorman, most would rather see you
>>> give it to some other shop or motorman.    Human nature.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 12, 2009, at 10:05 PM, Ken and Tracie wrote:
>>>
>>>> So where did one-of-a-kind all electric car 1600 see the most
>>>> service? Was
>>>> it being serviced or just mothballed when it was destroyed by fire?
>>>>
>>>> K.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>