[PRCo] Fwd: PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY PHOTO ARCHIVE 3

Mon Oct 15 17:40:58 EDT 2012

*From: *"Frank Pfuhler" <pfuhler at msn.com>
*Date: *October 15, 2012 11:39:39 AM EDT
*Subject: **Fw: PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY PHOTO ARCHIVE 3*

----- Original Message -----
*From:* Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>

Comments from Fred Schneider

Frank

More if you want to resend.

Begin forwarded message:

*From: *"Frank Pfuhler" <pfuhler at msn.com>
*Date: *October 13, 2012 9:23:31 PM EDT
*To: *"Frank Pfuhler" <pfuhler at msn.com>
*Subject: **Re: PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY PHOTO ARCHIVE 3*

PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY PHOTO ARCHIVE  3

FRANK

Looking off the end of the P&W station platforms at 69th Street Terminal in
Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, PA, about 1951, we see one
of the three remaining 700 series cars of the Lehigh Valley Transit Company
in the pocket Track.   Off to the right are five of the 1907 Market Street
subway cars and farthest from the camera, one of the 1926 Frankford
Elevated cars.   These lasted until the Budd order of "Almond Joy" cars
arrived in 1960, so named because the vents on the roof remind one of a
candy bar.  A Pennsylvania Railroad branch also terminated in the subway
yard.

Fairmount Park Transit Co. ordered all its cars when the line opened in
1896 and retired them 50 years later when it shut
down.   There was one Brill order in June 1896 for 50 open cars and one for
10 closed cars.   They were followed a few
weeks later by two more orders, each for 5 closed cars.  The company also
bought a sprinkler car and a line car in 1897.

Location … same as the next picture.

One can only speculate that had the war not intervened, this might have
disappeared a few years sooner instead of at the
end of the park season on Monday September 9, 1946.

Woodland (amusement) Park, which had been a subsidiary of the trolley
company, remained until 1955.

Both this image and the one before it were taken at the 44th and Parkside
Avenue loop in Philadelphia.  The 1876 Centennial Exposition,
the first world's fair in the United States, was celebrated in the field
behind the train.   I have no idea who took this but I have an identical
8x10 in my file with no identification on it.   However, presence of the
Navy chap on shore leave on the 8th bench of the first car suggests
World War II.

The weeds suggest that this might be after the September 1946 abandonment.
  It is outside the "Belmont
Car House" in Fairmount Park.   The car house exist today to store city
parks department machinery.
Drivers on the Schuylkill Expressway (Surekill Crawlway) pass right by the
back end of the building.

Pittsburgh Railways adopted the orange paint scheme in the mid 1920s.  I
have checked with Ed Lybarger at the trolley museum who admits
he has seen this picture but has knows nothing of the accident.   It
repainted in orange Feb. 7. 1929.   Less than two years later, on
July 27, 1931, it was painted again and that might not be something you do
for cars used only in the rush hour unless that was when the
accident took place.   There was an accident in the Pittsburgh Press in
July 22, 1930 involving a 4100 but the damage doesn't match.   I have
not found anything else and I wasted a whole day hunting.

These were the last high floor cars built for Pittsburgh; the 50 cars
(4100-4149) came from Pressed Steel Car Co. in 1909.   All were fitted
with K-43 control which permitted six motors to be operated.   Why six?
Four on the motor car and two on the trailer behind it.   Yes, not
really a trailer and not really an MU train either.   The motor car has
Westinghouse 306 motors rated at 60 hp (a PCC has 55 hp motors)
so it will step out.    It is about the same as a New Orleans 900 with
twice the horsepower!

These were rear-entrance, front exit, two-man cars.   As Pittsburgh was one
of the earliest properties in the nation to convert to one-man cars,
these cars were not particularly adored by the 1920s and by the late 1920s
were relegated to rush hours only.  The last instance of trailer
operation I can find in the company route cards happened in 1937 out of
both Ingram Car House and Avalon Yard using these cars and
then only in rush hours.   By the way, I checked the annotations on the
cards against the man hours … sometimes the hours actually dropped
without any mention of the conductors disappearing but then you know that
the second man had disappeared.  By the time the third PCC
order arrived, there were no conductors left in Pittsburgh (that would be
the 1100s in 1937; the first order was only one car).

After 1937 some 4000s and 4100s were converted to snow plows and tow cars.
  One of them, 4115, was rebuilt by Ed Blossom of Magee
Museum fame, then found its way to Cleveland, and a two years ago it
migrated to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

Philadelphia's initial PCC order in the original aluminum, cream and blue
livery.   The photo is on Carpenter Lane just east of Wayne
Avenue in Germantown, Pa., November, 1939.   If you look at this area in
Google maps, you should not fail to observe that
Philadelphia Rapid Transit was trying to put its shiny new PCC cars where
they would do the most political good.  The houses in this
neighborhood were some of the most expensive in any of the neighborhoods
serviced by PRT at that time.   The house and the garage
here are sort of an anomaly for the area … they look dumpy compared to
everything around them for miles.

     http://maps.google.com/

Same type car as Altoona 51 in the previous group of pictures.
 Osgood-Bradley made 21 of them in 1925-26.   If my memory is working
properly, Frank, these were retired when the Nay Aug and Petersburg lines
quit running in 1953.   This particular car was retired in 1952.
The photograph is in front of the carbarn on Providence Road, probably in
the 1940s judging by the more complete track and wirework
than existed closer to the end of service.

-- 
Derrick

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