[PRCo] Re: 4393 Versus 4366

[John Swindler]

Perhaps mileage was computed same way as is done today.  Calculated by operations based on car assignment with the record made available to maintenance as needed.  This doesn't apply any longer to Pittsburgh but examples can still be found in Pa.
 
Cheers
John
 

 

> Subject: [PRCo] Re: 4393 Versus 4366
> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
> Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:25:33 -0500
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> 
> No it is not Ed's area of expertise. Roster detail of Pittsburgh Railways belongs to another name that I mentioned earlier. 
> 
> The Westinghouse cars in Manchester were the 1400s that had previously been at Herron Hill when it closed. Make sense? 
> 
> Heavy overhauls were mileage based beginning in the depression. You tell me how many miles were accumulated on a car? And once we got into the 1950s and the money was running out, a lot of the work was done in car houses instead of sending cars to Homewood. 
> 
> The only revenue cars I ever photographed on Fineview were 1688 and 1689. I don't dispute that you have a roster that shows Westinghouse cars at Keating. I have no idea how authentic it is or who prepared it. I never saw a Westinghouse car at Keating. I only personally witnessed GE tens, elevens, sixteens and seventeens
> 
> In an entire 1/2 inch folder of Glenwood photos, three of them are GE 1400s on route 56 at unidentified locations on unknown dates by an unknown photographer. They could have been taken in the two years after Glenwood closed and its routes were assigned to Tunnel. 
> 
> 
> On Feb 16, 2012, at 10:05 AM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
> 
> > 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
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>