[PRCo] Lost Motorman December 19, 1957

[Derrick Brashear]

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:

> Does not surprise me in the least.   In 1958, I organized a charter for
> the Lancaster Chapter of the NRHS.   I asked our motorman, Roy Taylor, how
> many men were system qualified and the answer I got was an incredibly small
> number of old men.  There were probably a fewer than five in each division
> that were qualified to run the whole system.    Most of the guys knew the
> routes in the barn where they worked but they didn't know the whole system.
>   Even on our trip, an inspector (a white hat) showed up out in Lincoln
> Place where route 65 joined route 56 because the company believed there had
> been some trackwork changes since Roy had last been there.   If my memory
> is correct, those track changes occurred years before our trip.
>
> And if you think Pittsburgh was bad, can you imagine how many people might
> have been system qualified in Philadelphia or Chicago or Brooklyn?   I
> think Chicago was probably the largest system.
>
> Yes, Ed, he probably got spoken to but I wonder how charitable the bosses
> were????    Pittsburgh is a city where you need a certain instinct to get
> around and we both know that.   I remember standing out in front of East
> Liberty Presbyterian Church after Derrick Brashear's wedding.   I was
> surrounded by the invited guests looking at portable GPS units trying to
> figure out how to get from East Liberty to the South Side.   They were
> clueless.   I think most of them came from Pittsburgh.  I simply got in my
> car and drove there … no problem.


It'd be harder now. Highland Avenue Bridge is out. At least once my
autopilot brought me to Fifth and Highland on a Sunday morning before
church, before I realized "not gonna work"

Of course, they did replace the Ellsworth Avenue Bridge, but it's only for
non-motorized traffic!



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