[PRCo] Fwd: PRCo Armed Motormen

Richard Allman allmanr at verizon.net
Fri Aug 2 20:04:54 EDT 2013 

wasn't it during WW2 that PTC had National Guard operators when TWU struck 
because the company hired black operators? Unsure if they were armed, but 
they meant business!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: "Western PA Trolley discussion" 
<pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2013 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [PRCo] Fwd: PRCo Armed Motormen


I had that problem … try asking them to show you the law.



On Aug 2, 2013, at 1:49 PM, Dwight Long wrote:

>
> Fred
>
> Another problem in East St Louis and east of it is officious security 
> guards who tell you not to photograph the trams.
>
> Dwight
>
> From: Fred Schneider
> Sent: Friday, 02 August, 2013 12:41
> To: Western PA Trolley discussion
> Subject: [PRCo] Fwd: PRCo Armed Motormen
> 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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