[PRCo] Re: Car 1600

[Schneider Fred]

I think there is a date for the Boston car in the second PCC book ...  
had to be when there was no longer any street running ... I think  
when the Charles River - Arborway quit.

Baltimore?   The only oddball was the Brilliner (7501) and I think it  
was retired along with the 27 St. Louis cars in 1956.  If that isn't  
correct, then we'll have to ask the Baltimorons.   :<)

The Clark PCC in Brooklyn, by the way, really wasn't an orphan.   The  
only issue with it would have been things like window glass.    
Motors, controls, trucks were identical with all the other PCCs so it  
lasted until the end of service on October 31, 1956.   That car is  
preserved at Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston.


On Jul 13, 2009, at 12:03 AM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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