[PRCo] Fwd: PRCo Armed Motormen

Fri Aug 2 12:41:18 EDT 2013

The Armed Trolley Motorman discussion borders on a "Stop the World, I want off" discussion. 

I recall an item that my aunt sent to me from a Washington, DC, newspaper about 1954, when my uncle was spending his summers at the University of Maryland working on his doctoral thesis.   Seems a chap boarded a Glen Echo - Cabin John car at a rural stop late in the evening, helped himself to all the motorman's cash, and then left in the woods.   It was so unusual back then that it was front page news.  

Just a few years later Philadelphia Transportation Company was making plans to shorten the 37 (or was it 36 by then) car line from the loop in the swamps to a new loop closer to civilization because they were tiring of motormen losing their change boxes.   

The period mentioned in these posts … late 1960s and early 1970s … was when SEPTA installed flashing police call lights on all vehicles to enable a driver being held up to summon police.   See the yellow light on the roof at the front of the vehicle … it's there to call the cops.   But that was a period when those problems were in the big cities.   The small cities were almost considered immune.  

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SEPTA_New_Flyer_DE40LF_5606H.jpg 

Sad isn't it.   Lancaster, at that time, simply reduced the amount of money operators carried because smaller cities were safe.   The money changer was no longer openly visible.   They suggested you should have exact fare but if you didn't, the operator could reach in his box, pull out the changer and make change.   Today, with a knifing or gun slaying almost every week in Lancaster, no one would even think of subjecting a bus driver to carrying change.   Harrisburg had 15 killings in January through April 2013 … same problem.  I just searched Johnstown on line … in 2010: 3 murders, 6 rapes, 43 robberies and 53 assaults …  105 major crimes in a city of only 23,000 people.    It is no longer the big cities.  It's everywhere.

I have a buddy who lives in downtown Reading … known him since we were in high school.   He lives in a high rise apartment.  Claims he doesn't go out at night … just sits upstairs and listens to the gunfire on the streets below.

Camden, NJ, a small city across the river from Philly, has become one of those don't go there places.   Your chance of being murdered in Camden was 61 per 100,000 in 2011.  It has a population of around 77,000 so that's 47 killings a year … just slightly lower than one per week … and that was before murders skyrocketed because the city ran out of money and they disbanded the city police force in 2013.  

Probably the one place you don't want to go to photograph light rail cars is East Saint Louis … small city and it doesn't appear on the radar in most cases because the crime statistics you read only show the big places like Detroit and St. Louis.   But East Saint Louis, Illinois gives you 92 chances out of 100,000 of being murdered in a year … probably the worst in the country.   Far worse than St. Louis which you read in the papers.   It's one of those towns where you have to be careful when you drive because the crooks steal manhole covers and sell them for scrap.

And if you think you can avoid it by moving … pick a city and look it up on the internet.   I just picked Fargo, North Dakota.   Population is about 105,000.   You have one chance in 100,000 of being murdered.  45 chances of being robbed.  190 chances of being assaulted.  

     http://www.cityoffargo.com/CityInfo/Departments/Police/CitizenResources/CrimeStatistics/

I remember listening to a western Minnesota radio station a few years ago that was telling its listeners that the drug culture loved rural areas because the police were not as sophisticated as they were in the big cities.

Beam me up Scotty….

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
> Date: August 2, 2013 10:44:23 AM EDT
> To: Western PA Trolley discussion <pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org>
> Subject: Re: [PRCo] PRCo Armed Motormen
> Reply-To: Western PA Trolley discussion <pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org>
> 
> 
> What about Dayton around 1970??  Didn't the private operator publicize that the bus operators would be deputized?  
> 
> Exact fare (Removal of cash from operators) occurred after a D.C. transit operator was gunned down around 1970.
> 
> They told us at CTA in 1968 not to argue or get into a fight - we were not paid to be a hero.  Chicago was averaging about a thousand bus robbery's a year.  During one of my summers, a 12-Roosevelt bus operator was gunned down.  He was a foreign student working for the summer and may not have fully understood "give me da money".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> From: hrbran at cavtel.net
>> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 09:34:57 -0400
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org
>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] PRCo Armed Motormen
>> 
>> It was against PATransit policy to allow any employee to carry a firearm. I
>> remember Harold Geissenheimer did discuss that topic one time after
>> Division 85 of the Amalgamated Transit Union put forth the idea of
>> operators and mechanics being allowed to carry guns. This was after scores
>> of operator assaults, myself being a victim included. Policy remained the
>> same.............no guns. The same is true at Greater Cleveland Regional
>> Transit Authority.........no guns. In Cleveland, even with a "permit to
>> carry", one was required to secure the weapon in your private vehicle
>> before coming into the station.
>> 
>> With individual states beginning to allow teachers and school personnel to
>> be armed, and given the American habit of "pushing the envelope", we may at
>> some point see some states allowing transit personnel to be armed. Transit
>> operator assaults are on the rise again all over North America and this
>> will play into any decision on armed transit personnel.
>> 
>> As for the newspaper article, it almost seems comic. The operator had time
>> to "hoist the front trolley pole" before the robber got from the rear of
>> the car to stop him? Please! People were easily convinced of anything back
>> in 1931.
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 8:21 AM, Lattner, Raymond <rlattner at pa.gov> wrote:
>> 
>>> Ed, I guess you will probably be the only one who may be able to
>>> answer this, did the company actually ever arm PRCo operators?
>>> 
>>> Anything in your files regarding this? Also, did PAT ever consider arming
>>> its operators? Are PAT employees allowed to carry if permitted?
>>> 
>>> Any idea what kind of police force PRCo had?
>>> 
>>> Thanks
>>> 
>>> Ray
>>> 
>>> Article dated October 1931.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Herb Brannon
>> *In Pittsburgh...The Paris of
>> Appalachia<http://www.arc.gov/appalachian_region/TheAppalachianRegion.asp>
>> *
>> Let's Go Bucs
>> 
>> 
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