[PRCo] Re: Fwd: Re: wrong side of the river?
Dwight Long
dwightlong at verizon.net
Wed Sep 26 15:26:01 EDT 2012
Fred
Is the man in track shoes the one who is leaning against the pole in the
Beveridge photo taking a fot of the back end of 4399?
Dwight
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: "Derrick Brashear" <shadow at gmail.com>; "Pittsburgh Railways Railways"
<pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 8:26 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Fwd: Re: wrong side of the river?
> Why did not this get posted to your list, Derrick?
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> Date: September 25, 2012 8:42:50 PM EDT
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] Re: wrong side of the river?
>>
>> Both Dwight and George are of the belief that it is the old Brady Street
>> Bridge. I was able to find only one on-line picture of that bridge and
>> the angle is not all that great for verification, but the middle three
>> trusses do look very similar to the picture originally submitted.
>> There are no pictures that I can find on line showing the trusses of the
>> old Glenwood Bridge.
>>
>> http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/BradyStreet.html
>>
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_beveridge/8014098467/
>>
>> Regarding how bad 4398 looked back then . I don't feel like hunting where
>> I buried the Pittsburgh Railways paint book to find out when it was last
>> painted, but safe to say that the new railways company after 1949 did
>> very little painting of yellow cars because they didn't have any money.
>> Remember, they had been separated from Duquesne Light and Equitable Gas.
>> PRC retained ten double end cars after 1953 for emergencies . fires,
>> police standoffs, accidents, etc., and then rapidly discovered it was a
>> lot easier to muster a few buses. Those cars were the ten converted
>> high speeds . mostly cars in the 4390s and all had K35 control. While
>> equipment was segregated to barns by control apparatus . Tylerdale,
>> Charleroi, Highland, Ingram had cars with remote control (Pittsburgh
>> called it Westinghouse HL but they were functionally knock offs of GE
>> type M). But the high speed double-end cars gravitated to one barn .
>> Glenwood . because of one relatively fast route .. 99 Glass!
> port.
>>
>> Back in 1958, I arranged a Pittsburgh fantrip for the Lancaster NRHS . we
>> used 1707 and had all of eight passengers. Now when you have eight
>> people and one of them is five years old and your motorman is also an
>> instructor (Roy Taylor), everyone of us got a chance to run that car.
>> Well, we also stopped in Glenwood that day and pulled out 4398 for
>> pictures. Believe me, it was pretty ratty looking and that was the
>> period when the Pittsburgh Electric Railway Club was using it for
>> fantrips. The car you see today at PTM is all new below the letterboard
>> . explains why you no longer see a crease in the panel under the first
>> window from a sagging platform. Even 3756 in the attached picture (if
>> encartis doesn't eat it), has been repainted at since the museum acquired
>> it. None of these cars look as bad as then did when PRC was running
>> them.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regarding why Scott Beveridge posted something that was incorrect? Ed
>> Lybarger and I have been party all last week to a running argument about
>> why CERA allowed egregious errors to be published in their new Pittsburgh
>> book. They should have know better. Well, it's a lot easier to
>> complain than do the work. Phrased differently, there is nothing that
>> cannot be done if you do not have to do it.
>>
>> If you will indulge this 72-year-old for a few minutes, please. My
>> mentors in this hobby were older gentlemen who remembered what it was
>> like back when. The oldest man I knew in the hobby was taking pictures
>> of the Lancaster to Lititz trolleys in front of his home in 1905. Harry
>> died in 1957. Thankfully he wrote down a lot of local history. I was
>> given access to the glass plates of a local studio photographer before
>> they closed their retail store in the 1960s . Darmstetter quit his studio
>> operation in 1940 but it went back to about 1910. The local railfans I
>> knew were mostly snapping box camera images of local trolleys in 1931,
>> 1932, 1933. One of them had more money than he knew what to do with and
>> drove around after school in a Buick hauling his Graflex reflex camera
>> around. You may have seen his name in the very early Trains magazines .
>> William M. Moedinger, Jr. The last of those early people in Lancaster
>> died at age 96 two years ago. One was Moedinger, !
> the other was Jim Shuman. But because of their friends, I got to know a
> lot of people from other areas . George Krambles, Bill Janssen, Bob
> Mehlehbeck. I was running with the those old farts who are all dead now.
>>
>> And then there were younger friends who died more recently. Some of you
>> remember the next two names. A man named William D. Middleton wanted to
>> borrow some of my pictures for the book Time of the Trolley back in 1965.
>> We arranged to meet in Philadelphia. He came with a friend . Donald
>> Duke, who lived in suburban Los Angeles. I made one trip in 2010 to see
>> of them. Don died three months later. The next spring I was able to
>> see Bill before cancer took him. They were both in their early 80s.
>>
>> Think about it, we're now the old people and all most of us saw were
>> PCCs. John Swindler has commented many times about how I remember
>> yellow cars in Pittsburgh and he doesn't. Yes. I remember the Laketon
>> Shuttle which was right in his back yard . but I remember it as a 6, 7, 8
>> or 9-year-old, not as someone who really understood it. I never rode
>> it. I was 11 when the Liberty Bell Route quit but I never rode it. I
>> did ride one West Penn car.
>>
>> And the young kids today? Do they understand that cables were used for
>> guard rails in 1940 and that they were anchored to 12 inch poles? No,
>> because they never saw them. If you are 20 or 30 or 40 year old, what
>> is there in that picture of 4398 that tells you that it is staged?
>> Nothing because it was staged before you were born. You don't have a
>> clue.
>>
>> So please don't jump too hard on the man with track shoes. Instead,
>> someone (and I'm too old to know how to get too him via Yahoo) needs to
>> explain gently what a fantrip is, that is staged, and where it is. The
>> historical society where he got the picture also needs to be told that
>> they have been victimized.
>>
>> By the way, the egregious errors in the CERA book have been about which
>> PCC was first. It appears that some of the Brooklyn 1000s were in
>> service before Pittsburgh 100 but all the B&QT documents have long since
>> been destroyed. The one Brooklyn fan who had preserved large amounts of
>> data (Don Harold) was unable to provide me with anything really specific
>> when I was doing the PCC book. Again . no problem doing it if you don't
>> have to do it.
>>
>>
>> On Sep 25, 2012, at 6:44 PM, Dwight Long wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> Right idea, wrong bridge. The 10th St bridge is a suspension bridge.
>>> The
>>> one in the fot is the Brady St Bridge. See my earlier post on this.
>>>
>>> Dwight
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "John Swindler" <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
>>> To: "Pittsburgh Railways" <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 9:43 AM
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: wrong side of the river?
>>>
>>>
>>>> I don't see a motorman??????? Could this be a staged photo - like
>>>> maybe
>>>> fantrip?????? Disregarding the destination signs, the first
>>>> impression
>>>> was Second Ave. near Tenth St. bridge. But I have no faith in this
>>>> first
>>>> impression. So back to Charleroi area. John
>>>>> Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:59:03 -0700
>>>>> From: pcc_sr at yahoo.com
>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: wrong side of the river?
>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
>>>>>
>>>>> Mr.Brashear,
>>>>>
>>>>> This looks like a case for Detective Lybarger doesn't it. We know
>>>>> the only place the Charleroi line crossed the Monongahela is downtown
>>>>> Pittsburgh isn't it. Thus the car is apparently heading south rather
>>>>> than north.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it near Monongahela City? A bridge over a tributary is at Black
>>>>> Diamond Jct; double track leads to the Jct. But this does not seem
>>>>> to fit. It appears the car is on a bridge; the railing far side
>>>>> suggests
>>>>> this. It also seems rather new construction; paving is new as well.
>>>>> The bridge across the Monongahela doesn't fit this location does it.
>>>>>
>>>>> It looks like a coal tipple or associated structure spans the highway
>>>>> in the distance; I can not determine what the trolley tracks do at
>>>>> that
>>>>> distance. I am looking for evidence of single track.
>>>>>
>>>>> If the signs are correct this is a shuttle from Mongahela south and
>>>>> return not the Donora car. I can not detect the motorman at the
>>>>> controller. Did the car stop and pose for this picture? Do schedules
>>>>> reveal a run or train "86"?
>>>>>
>>>>> If the signs are correct this could be other places along the river
>>>>> from Mongahela south. Does it fit any other location?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> ________________________________
>>>>>> From: Derrick Brashear <shadow at gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: Pittsburgh Railways Group <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 12:01 AM
>>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] wrong side of the river?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Was route 906 on the west shore of the river ever? I assumed it was
>>>>>> always on the other side, only, and
>>>>>> thus the caption is incorrect?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_beveridge/8014098467/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Derrick
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
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