[PRCo] Re: "West Pittsburgh" - Cleveland ETB's

[Fred Schneider]

Fred isn't sure where he first saw and rode on a TC?   Philadelphia or Baltimore or Columbus.   One of those foggy things in the early teens.   Just saw ... well add Cincinnati or Cleveland or Chicago or Montreal or Boston?   I'm sure I rode them in San Francisco but that wasn't early.     

They sure had impressive acceleration compared to diesel or gas buses.   I remember a New Orleans operator pushing the pedal to the metal on Saint Claude in 1958.   Damn that Marmon took off.   I had to admit that rubber tires on dry pavement had a lot more traction that steel wheels on steel rails under a PCC, especially when climbing up Perrysville Avenue.  

The problem for a private sector business was that we installed trolley coaches after it was in a declining market when it was no longer profitable to run streetcars and it rapidly became just as uneconomical to run the TCs.   General Electric used to a publish a brochure showing that their effective operating window for a TC was when headways were between 5 and 8 minutes.   Well, it didn't take long after the war for headways to drop from 5 to 6 to 7 to 10 to 20 minutes.   

I think Pittsburgh Railways' good fortune was that they never did put trolley coaches out in the west end.   Hindsight is pretty clear.   


On Mar 14, 2011, at 10:37 AM, Dwight Long wrote:

> Bob
> 
> Ha!  I also grew up in Pgh area in 40s and 50s, but my first TC sighting was in Kansas City, Mo., in 1945.  I had a choice of riding on one or on a KC tram (which even could have been a Birney then--I saw some in service--and since I had never ever seen such a thing as a TC I opted to ride it.  Big mistake--I never rode a KC tram (at least not in KC).
> 
> Dwight
> 
>  ---