[PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
Dwight Long
dwightlong at verizon.net
Mon Nov 8 10:26:28 EST 2010
Rich
Don't know if you are familiar with IntraExpress or not, but one of their hallmarks is that they always have a group photo, a copy of which is sent to all participants after the trip.
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: richard allman
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Sent: Sunday, 07 November, 2010 15:29
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
Fred-Sounds like the snake bite prevention worked-Jim was not bitten and
even if he was, he managed to live another 72 years after the event!
Old fantrip photos always shw the guys very dressed up and they always had a
group photo-seems like at least w/ the group photo, we've lost something
from an earlier time-I'm starting to sound like a geezer!!!!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 3:20 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
> And there was the June 1940 trip on Hershey transit and a 1938 trip on the
> same company. Let us not forget the Oct. 20. 1940 trip on the Indiana
> Railroad from Indianpolis to Peru to Fort Wayne to Spring Valley New
> Castle and back to Anderson and then return to Fort Wayne .
>
> The May 1938 Gary trip may have been the first but there was apparently a
> CERA Indiana trip shortly after that. I have a whole series of pictures
> of IRR 58 taken on August 20, 1938 by both Jim Shuman and John Bowman of
> Lancaster. In one of them we see the back sides of Harry Zillmer and
> Brney stone, the profile of Bill Janssen, and George Krambles waving to
> get aboard.
>
> There was an Oct. 20, 1938 trip on Reading St. Ry. using 206 and 307.
>
> There was also that legendary 1938 trip on the Southern New York Railway
> at Hartwick NY. It was organized by Bob Gurley, who later became the
> son-in-law of Dick Steinmetz. Today Bob and Dick are dead and very
> recently Bob son, who was active at Railways to Yesterday, passed away at
> a very young age.
> Legendary? Well, I'm sure Rich Allman heard this story. Bob Lewis, Al
> Pittman and Jim Shuman drove up to New York together for the fantrip ... I
> think the camped out to save money. If you don't know the principal
> terrorists ... Bob is still living and rapidly approaching the century
> mark ... he was the publisher of Railway Age for many years. Al Pittman
> was the founder of Pittman model motors in Sellsville. Jim Shuman worked
> for the Pennsy as a freight agent and loss and damage supervisor; he died
> this year at age 96. The story goes that one or both of the others told
> Jim that you had to protect yourself from things that slithered on the
> ground and that it worked bests if you took the medication before you were
> bitten. Allegedly that was their excuse to get Jim boozed. So much for
> legends. You want to read about the fantrip itself, Jim wrote about it
> and it was published in ERA Headlights about 20 years ago.
>
> Those were the days when a fantrip cost 50 cents. I suspect the Indiana
> cost a few dollars.
>
>
> On Nov 7, 2010, at 2:11 PM, richard allman wrote:
>
>> INTERESTING subject to reflect upon, Fred-and Dwight!!!!
>>
>> Some mini-sleuthing on my part has unearthed the following on systems
>> where
>> I have a particular interest:
>>
>> LVT-Lehigh Valley NRHS had a fantrip in September, 1941 when car 1030 was
>> introduced to Liberty Bell Limited service. Not sure of any earlier ones
>> during the rollout of the modernization cars in early 1939. I know that
>> chapter maintains an archive of all its fantrips. Will inquire of Joel
>> Salomon.
>>
>> Philadelphia Suburban-I think it was Philadelphia Chapter that ran a trip
>> in
>> August, 1941 that coincided w/ the introduction of the Brilliners. They
>> ran
>> the Brilliner to Ardmore(and had a photo stop inbound at Ardmore Jct.
>> when
>> then-young Ed Miller and Jim Shuman-strangers to each other @ that
>> time-scrambled up to the P&W station to catch great shots of the
>> northbound
>> LVT 1000 car.) Later that day, they ran one of the 40 series Jewett
>> cars-as
>> classic and beautiful a car as ever there was- to West Chester.
>>
>> Philadelphia Transportation Co.-a Birney trip to Chester in the Summer of
>> 1941-Phila. Chapter-by that time had to be via Route 37-the only
>> remaining
>> link to Chester. Phila. Chapter has had a ton of trips over its history.
>> I
>> have not been a member-always a tad miffed that I was publicly
>> reprimanded
>> at one of their meetings in the 1970's for not wearinga tie to the
>> meeting
>> at the Philadelphia Engineers' Club on Spruce St., though around 15 years
>> or
>> so ago, I helped them secure the Faculty Club at Jefferson Medical
>> College
>> for their monthly meetings after they lost the Downtown Club in the old
>> Curtis Publishing Building on Independence Mall (thanks for letting me
>> vent!!!!).
>>
>> Boston Elevated Railway-a trip over wide stretches of the system,
>> including
>> East Boston, Sommerville, Cambridge lines-any that had loops on that
>> largely
>> double-ended system-w/ PCC 3001-the Queen Mary-Boston El's only St. Louis
>> car on 6/19/38-more than 5 years before I was born. Probably one of the
>> first fantrips in Boston.
>>
>> There was that famous trip on Wilkes Barre Railway-probably in the early
>> 40's-pre-war when the guys-dressed is suits and ties and dress hats and
>> as
>> was the standard garb for fantrips-pushed the dead car through a section
>> of
>> the Edwardsville line. Probably an Antracite Division ERA trip And, some
>> group also ran a WBRwy trip in 1939 that my friend and mentor Dave Cope
>> attended.
>>
>> See what else I can dredge up!
>>
>> RICH
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 12:24 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
>>
>>
>>> There was a charter over Conestoga Transportation in the fall of 1937 to
>>> commemorate the Lititz and Columbia lines which were to abandoned the
>>> following February.
>>>
>>> The earliest railfan charter that I can document was one sponsored by a
>>> group of young men organized under the name of the Baltimore Society of
>>> Model Engineers. I believe the group still exists. They chartered a
>>> Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad gondola with benches, two open
>>> platform
>>> coaches and a 4-4-0 steam locomotive for a round trip from Baltimore to
>>> York, PA on November 10, 1935.
>>>
>>> I have been told that this trip caused "The Big Red Subway" to take
>>> notice. About a year later the Pennsy sponsored their first Off the
>>> Beaten Track excursion for the fans from Philadelphia to Harrisburg
>>> using
>>> the Downingtown and Lancaster Branch. Ultimately the D&L was worked
>>> from
>>> both ends and the middle was torn up in 1956; today only the west end
>>> from
>>> New Holland to Lancaster remains.
>>>
>>> Of course charters were not unheard of before that. It was simply that
>>> charters for us crazies were never run. One of my favorite pictures
>>> shows seven Conestoga Traction double-truck open cars lined up on North
>>> Queen Street in front of the Keppel Candy factory. They chartered for
>>> the candy company's annual employees' picnic. That year ... it was in
>>> the early 1920s ... the picnic was being held at Carsonia Park, an
>>> amusement venue, east of Reading PA and this involved an interline
>>> operation between Conestoga Traction and Reading Street Railway.
>>> Chartered cars for church picnics were very common between 1890 and
>>> 1925.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 7, 2010, at 11:24 AM, Dwight Long wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fred
>>>>
>>>> What you say is true, but the very first CERA enthusiast charter was
>>>> over
>>>> Gary Railways' interurban line to Valparaiso, Ind., (my home town from
>>>> 1971-76) on 1 May 1938.
>>>>
>>>> Dwight
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Fred Schneider
>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>> Sent: Saturday, 06 November, 2010 17:10
>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Probably scarce for several reasons ....
>>>>
>>>> (1) because the plant gestapo attempted to scare off photographers
>>>>
>>>> (2) Pityburg was one of those places where railfan photos were scarce
>>>> in
>>>> the early years of the hobby because railfans who lived there escaped
>>>> on
>>>> vacations and no sane person took a vacation in hell.
>>>>
>>>> There are places where they are very common early. The NRHS was
>>>> formed
>>>> by merger of two groups in 75 years ago this past summer. One was the
>>>> Lancaster Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. The other was the
>>>> Interstate Trolley Club, a group of young men in northern New Jersey
>>>> and
>>>> New York City. It follows that we had loads of pictures from those
>>>> areas. Chicago had the CERA very early or at least its roots.
>>>> Those
>>>> guys were running fantrips on the Indiana Railroad back in 1938.
>>>>
>>>> But Pittsburgh? There was a small NRHS group just before the war,
>>>> which fell apart when the army drafted all or most of its members.
>>>> It's
>>>> club room was a PRC low-floor trailer body out it Penn Township, which
>>>> probably then disappeared in a WW2 scrap drive. Many of those guys
>>>> organized the Pittsburgh Electric Railway Club after the war. But if
>>>> you consider it as a percent of population, it was probably less than
>>>> 5%
>>>> of what we had here in Lancaster a few years earlier.
>>>>
>>>> And what happened over time?
>>>>
>>>> Today I had to pull out the Lancaster Birney in Manheim for a 75th
>>>> anniversary celebration of the founding of the NRHS. There were men
>>>> from
>>>> all over the east. The youngest might have been in his late 60s. The
>>>> average was older than me. The oldest was probably 90. What does
>>>> that
>>>> say for the hobby? I suspect it is getting smaller but I also suspect
>>>> a
>>>> lot of people are communicating the way we are now instead of meeting
>>>> in
>>>> clubs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 6, 2010, at 4:25 PM, Derrick Brashear wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> If you happen to run across anything on East Carson above 10th that's
>>>>> interesting, I'd love to see it, notably at the railroad crossing at
>>>>> 21st, and outside J&L. Photos have been scarce, I guess because the 50
>>>>> just... ended
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 16:24, Russell Cashdollar
>>>>>> <cashdollarr at earthlink.net>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Search criteria....!!!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Normal search criteria works only so far...
>>>>>>> To turn up all the hidden goodies...
>>>>>>> one has to look at everything...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I began with 1928 PRCo Trolly guide that lists all streets every
>>>>>>> route
>>>>>>> operated over.
>>>>>>> I wrote all the street names on a PRMA produced PRCo system map, and
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> included
>>>>>>> the names of all the neighborhoods in Pgh. which were also listed in
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> 1928 guide.
>>>>>>> I made a list of key words to
>>>>>>> search....Repair,construction,bridge,track,
>>>>>>> repave, etc. (it is a long list)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> THEN... I started by searching through one street, or avenue, or
>>>>>>> district,
>>>>>>> or neighborhood, or key word at a time.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am about 1/2 of the way through the list. I checked out and
>>>>>>> checked
>>>>>>> off
>>>>>>> my favorite
>>>>>>> and most promising search words first... and have therefore reached
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> point of
>>>>>>> diminishing returns and thus I now have less incentive trudge
>>>>>>> through.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But having faith that there are still prizes to be found, keeps me
>>>>>>> searching... but not as often.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ... And that is the only way I know to find the hidden jems.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Electric Shovel turned up under a search of Steuben as is the
>>>>>>> street
>>>>>>> name.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Russell
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: BobDietrich <bob.dietrich1 at verizon.net>
>>>>>>>> Sent: Nov 5, 2010 3:40 PM
>>>>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I asked the question before and found it was not on the roster.
>>>>>>>> I've
>>>>>>>> included another photo of it working in Homestead. Note the
>>>>>>>> contraption
>>>>>>>> that it is riding on, who needs rails in the street? I've started
>>>>>>>> collecting parts to make a model of this critter so all the photos
>>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>>> can
>>>>>>>> find will help.
>>>>>>>> Russ, what search criteria did you use to find this?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Bob
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
>>>>>>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>>>>> Herb
>>>>>>>> Brannon
>>>>>>>> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 2:24 PM
>>>>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>>>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Electric Shovel
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Interesting pics, Russ. Possibly Ed L or FWS would know if it is on
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> PRCo
>>>>>>>> roster.
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 11:28, Russell Cashdollar
>>>>>>>> <cashdollarr at earthlink.net>wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Steuben Street August 26 1924
>>>>>>>>> Pittsburgh City Photographer
>>>>>>>>> Ed and Fred,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Is this PRCo critter the "electric shovel" that is on The PRCo
>>>>>>>>> work
>>>>>>>>> car
>>>>>>>>> roster?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Russell
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>>>>>>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>>>>>>>> -- Size: 119k (122483 bytes)
>>>>>>>>> -- URL :
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Steuben%20Street%20Augus
>>>>>>>> t%2026%201924.a.jpg
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>>>>>>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>>>>>>>> -- Size: 156k (160210 bytes)
>>>>>>>>> -- URL :
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Steuben%20Street%20Augus
>>>>>>>> t%2026%201924.b.jpg
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Herb Brannon
>>>>>>>> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>>>>>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>>>>>>> -- Size: 80k (82838 bytes)
>>>>>>>> -- URL :
>>>>>>> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/02-shovel.jpg
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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