[PRCo] Re: Question about 69 Squirrel Hill Route

[Herb Brannon]

Too bad none of the contributors to that article weren't either Maintenance
Employees or PRCo Engineers (P.E. type).  Maybe then they would have
spelled out what they meant by, "....had some weight applied...".
On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Phillip Clark Campbell <pcc_sr at yahoo.com>wrote:

> John Baxter wrote the "Electric Railroads" 1952 article about
> the Prc interurbans.  This is 12-letter-sized pages.  Contributing
> to the article were 3-reporters from the "Washington [Pa.]
> Reporter."
>
> Newton E. Tucker, Albert R. Dauk, William A. Keller, and
> Karl H. Hittle from Prc were contributors along with
> Kempton F. McNutt of the Philadelphia Co. and
> Herman P. Hewitt, retired Washington operator with
> 46-years of local and interurban service.
>
> Photo credits include Robert H. Brown, Charles J. Dengler,
> Edward S. Miller, and Harry C. Bartley.
>
>
> The following is page-6, top right above the map.  This reveals
> more than I remembered and is most interesting.  I am sure many
> here have this article don't they; please verify the "facts" as they
> are quoted below:
>
>
> "In January 1946, local PCC car 1613 from Craft Ave. car house,
> with some minor body changes (fender replaced by pilot, trolley
> retreiver lowered, rear window opened, fare box replaced by Ohmer
> register, etc.) had some weight applied to its trucks and became
> the first experimental PCC interurban car.  The next month special
> St.Louis-built trucks, which had earlier been applied to PCC car
> 1278 for use on Rt. 37-Shannon, were rebuilt and applied to 1613.
> Later 10 special trucks [sets] were bought and applied to various
> PCC cars (as indicated by the accompanying roster) for
> interurban service.  Placed on the Washington route, they served
> as guinea pigs for various components later ordered for the
> 1700--1724 series of PCCs delivered in 1949 expressly for
> interurban use."
>
> "All cars in service on interurban routes are provided with extra
> equipment as follows: extra trolley pole mounted on roof, fire
> extinguisher, flashlight, trolley wire pickup, glass covered took
> kit including axe, wrenches, sledge, etc."
>
> The above is what I have written previously on the topic
> relative to 1613 entering interurban service with B2 trucks.  New
> information indicates car 1613 first used the experimental B3
> trucks in revenue service Feb-1946 doesn't it.
>
> http://lists.dementix.org/mlist/pittsburgh-railways/2012-05/msg00048.html
>
>
> The complete interurban roster (mentioned above) is not included.
> Please refer to your copies of this article.
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: TEP <tompark at telus.net>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> Sent: Friday, May 4, 2012 6:29 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Question about 69 Squirrel Hill Route
>
> Sounds odd to me as we are always trying to minimise the unsprung truck
> weight -- up to the point where the truck is unstable or has wheel-lift
> that
> could cause a derailment. Possibly this is why, a truck designed for slower
> speeds on street track, needed better stability for higher speeds on "T"
> railtrack. Lighter trucks mean less wheel and rail wear and slightly lower
> power consumption.
> Tom Parkinson P.Eng, Vancouver BC Canada 604-733-5430, fax 604-733-5437
>
> On 04/05/2012 12:52, Fred Schneider wrote: Or does heavier simply mean
> super
> resilient wheels instead of the regular design? There really isn't an easy
> way to add weight to a B2 truck unless you were to weld weight to the
> bolsteror fill the frame tubes with something like concrete. I'm skeptical.
> Istill want someone to tell me how it was done rather than simply tell me
> thetrucks were heavier. Phillip, where did you get this information that
> weight was
>  added to them? On May 4, 2012, at 3:37 PM, Derrick Brashear
> wrote:
>
>
>


-- 
Herb Brannon
In Cuyahoga Valley National Park