[PRCo] Re: These guys knew how to do it right!

[Schneider Fred]

Thanks Mike.   I forwarded to a group I'm in.
This is good.   Far from being comprehensive but interesting in that  
it shows that newspaper types shouted then too.   I like the part  
about the accident on the steep hill in West Wilkinsburg PA  
(Pittsburgh) where there really isn't any hill but a story about an  
out of control car plummeting down a hill on Penn Avenue at Trenton  
Avenue in "West Wilkinsburg" ... look for it under Pittsburgh.   I  
picked up on that right away because by great grandmother's last home  
in 1914 doesn't exist today; the hospital took over its site.   So I  
knew where Trenton Avenue in Pittsburgh was.

This horrible grade?   Might be 1/10th of one percent outbound on  
Penn Avenue.   You can see from the Bing photo below that there is no  
noticeable foundation slope on any of the buildings along Penn Avenue.

http://www3.gendisasters.com/pennsylvania/1595/pittsburgh%2C-pa- 
interurban-wreck%2C-feb-1907

http://www.bing.com/maps/? 
showupgrade=1#JnE9eXAucGVubislMjYrdHJlbnRvbithdmVzJTJjK3dpbGtpbnNidXJnJT 
JjK3BhJTdlc3N0LjAlN2VwZy4xJmJiPTU1LjIwNjYyNTg5NjExODglN2UtOTMuNjE2MTY1MT 
YxNSU3ZTEzLjg4NTI5MjYyMTc0NCU3ZS0xNTAuMTI5ODM3MDM2NQ==

Interestingly, note that the great 1917 trolley runaway that  
triggered the Pittsburgh Railways bankruptcy is also on page 5 of the  
railway accident list.   Amusingly the source is not any Pittsburgh  
paper but the Oakland (California Tribune.  And don't try to convince  
me that an accident can be so bad that it forces the corporation  
under. Rather the accident might be so bad that it is the final straw  
the breaks the camel's back.   That accident needs more research to  
tell us how much money PRC had been losing in the previous years to  
the underliners?   Who was milking them?   What was the debt service  
load in relation to income?   Were they simply self insuring  
themselves because they couldn't afford to buy a policy?


On Jan 6, 2010, at 10:19 AM, Michael Hermesky wrote:

>
>  http://www3.gendisasters.com/pennsylvania/12327/york-pa-near- 
> trolley-car-collision-sep-1905
> ________________________
> Mike Hermesky
> 717.940.2692