[PRCo] Re: 4393 Versus 4366

Thu Feb 16 20:14:19 EST 2012

Just back from Pittsburgh..............rainy but very warm there today. The
trees are even budding.
I would like to know the barn assignments for both 4366 and 4393. Either
Tuesday or some day in March.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:20, Edward H. Lybarger <trams2 at comcast.net>wrote:

> I can check the car assignment books, but they may not have been kept
> exactly accurately at the very end of a car's service life.  They would
> show
> the car's last "official" barn assignment, but perhaps not a temporary
> move.
>
> Maybe Tuesday; if not then it will be into March.  I am solid with contract
> work through Monday, and we leave Wednesday morning for a week in Florida.
>
> Ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org] On Behalf Of
> Phillip
> Clark Campbell
> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:06 AM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: 4393 Versus 4366
>
> Mr.Schneider;
> Car 4393 was scrapped in 1956 wasn't it.  Car 4398 was part of that group
> which is possibly why it was saved; now or never time.
>
> It was May and June when the high 4300s were scrapped.
>
>
> On the matter of equipment, it shifted so much didn't it that it would
> actually be difficult to pin down when a type was assigned any particular
> location.  I am not finding fault with the listing in your PCC book; I
> commend you for the effort.  My interest is not always piqued by these
> details but someone wrote that Westinghouse PCCs were the first ones
> modified for Fineview service.  The 1952 roster shows this doesn't it; I
> found that roster in the files here.  Cars 1669-1674 were at Keating, the
> only cars of this class at that time.  These must have been the ones
> modified for Fineview.  Cars 4219, 4366 and 4374 are shown at Keating;
> photos reveal it operating on Evergreen so it must have been moved to
> Keating.  This emphasizes that equipment moves are often frequent and
> arbitrary from our perspective doesn't it.  But Prc had a purpose.
>
>
> This sounds like an assignment for Mr.Lybarger doesn't it.  He alone seems
> to look from the:  "What am I missing?" perspective to find the answer.
>
>
> In 1952 Homewood was pure Westinghouse PCC.  There were 52-1200s!
> Homewood only had 3-classes of PCCs; other two are 16s and 17s.  South
> Hills
> at this time had 5-classes didn't it---11s, 12s, 14s, 16s, and 17s.  All
> the
> 16s were Interurbans.
>
>
> Manchester was a relatively small barn wasn't it yet it was assigned both
> Westinghouse and Ge cars.
>
> According to this 1952 roster Glenwood was strictly Westinghouse.  With
> half- a-dozen car house closures following Glenwood then had a mix to
> include Ge cars didn't it.  Craft at the time didn't have Ge but did
> later.
> It looks like a small barn but in 1952 had 109 PCCs and possibly received
> more!
>
> I always 'assumed' the Ge 17s from Ingram went to Keating in 1959.  They
> didn't.
> Many were in Homewood for a while.  Some time later Keating had all Ge-17s,
> not long before it was closed!
>
> Equipment apparently moved more frequently than one would assume.  "Maybe"
> heavy overhaul is 'a' reason.  A car sent to Homewood for same would
> immediately be replaced by another car.  This seems logical.  How often
> were
> heavy overhauls?
>
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 9:34 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: 4393 Versus 4366
>
> After 1953 ten cars were retained for a year or so for emergencies that
> never happened.   Buses were easier.   They were the 4390s.   That's why
> the
> museum got 4398.  So after the end of 1953 I think we can assume that 4393
> was scrapped pretty fast.
>
> The person to ask would be Dave Hamley.
>
>
> On Feb 15, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:
>
> > That's all well and good, however, should fall under the subject of
> > Control Systems.
> > I want to know where 4393 and 4366 were assigned during their tenure
> > at PRCo. I know where they were on January 1, 1952. Where were they after
> that?
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 18:03, Fred Schneider
> <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:
> >
> >> Funny thing, Herb.
> >> Normally cars were segregated to barns in Pittsburgh by equipment.
> >> We all knew which barns had GE PCCs and which had Westinghouse PCCs.
> >>
> >> The yellow cars had a similar scheme.   There were barns that had
> >> cars with K-35 or K-43 controls.   Then there were other barns that
> >> had cars with HL control.   Same as with the PCCs, the idea was to
> >> minimize parts inventory.   And, just like the PCC assignments,
> >> Homewood was totally mixed because it was right next door to the
> >> central parts room so it didn't matter.
> >>
> >> What is HL?   For those unfamiliar, HL was a Westinghouse remote
> >> control system, meaning the motorman's controller did not physically
> >> handle the 600 volt motoring circuits, it instead told a separate
> >> controller, usually mounted in a case under the car, what to do.
> >> Westinghouse used low voltage lines between the platform controller and
> the motoring controllers.
> >> In HL or AL, the L stood for Line voltage passed through a dropping
> >> resistor to get a low voltage control circuit.  In AB or HB, a
> >> battery was used for the control circuit.   The H stood for hand
> >> notching, a A for automatic progression.   Got it?   OK, now most
> >> Westinghouse schemes used pneumatic switches to control the actual
> >> 600 volt (or 1200 volt) circuits, and they we be mounted so that if
> >> you lost air, they would naturally open by gravity.
> >>
> >> General Electric favored solenoid (magnetic) switches instead of air
> >> (pneumatic switches). Almost all of the Westinghouse HL installations
> >> in Pittsburgh were really knock-offs of GE type M control ... they
> >> were low voltage (instead high voltage with GE favored) but they used
> >> solenoid switches instead of pneumatics.  The only possible exception
> >> (and I have never been able to prove this one way or the other),
> >> those 6000 series late 1920s experimental cars might have been
> pneumatic.
> >>
> >> OK, which barns ... Keating was supposedly a drum control barn.   All
> >>of  the single-end cars there in my memory were 4700s or 5500s in later
> years.
> >>   I made a stupid assumption that 4366 was therefore a K35 car.  Ooops.
> >> I found a picture of it at 12 Evergreen and guess what?   I can see
> >>very  clearly, the HL contactor box under the far end of the car.
> >>What the  blanket-blank caused them to mix cars at Keating unless it
> >>was the only car  they had available to put there?  In the period up
> >>until 1951-52 when route
> >> 9 also worked out of Keating, it used a 4200 and all those low 4200s
> >>that  were still active very late were HL cars also.  Roster pdf file
> attached.
> >> This roster also confirms that 4366 was a HL car; 4393 was a K-35 car.
> >>
> >> Might be when we got to the very bitter end, it didn't matter.   If
> >> it worked, put it there.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> >> -- Type: application/pdf
> >> -- Size: 184k (188994 bytes)
> >> -- URL :
> >> http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/roster.pdf
> >>
> >>
> >> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> >> -- Type: text/plain
> >> -- Size: 2k (2269 bytes)
> >> -- URL :
> >> http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/ecartIFqFm8
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Herb Brannon
In Cuyahoga Valley National Park