[PRCo] Happenings In Pittsburgh

[D Brashear]

On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net> wrote:

> May as well do some reading about Pittsburgh on these frozen evenings.
>
> []


> Rocco's funeral will probably be one of the biggest funerals held in
> Pittsburgh in recent times.
>
> I went to high school with Officer Sciullo , who died in the line of duty
April 4, 2009.
We went to watch the procession along the East Busway when he was buried.

NEXT ON THE reading list is PATransit and the ice storm yesterday morning.
> When I worked at PAT it was common, during an ice storm, to run a couple
> cars on the lines with "ice cutters" attached to the trolley wheel. These
> "ice cars" would be run whenever needed no matter what time of day or night
> and on all lines. Apparently the current management of PAT has forgotten
> that frozen water is a perfect insulator and will not allow the current to
> pass from the overhead wire into the motors. Yesterday morning the entire
> rail system was shut down, because of ice on the overhead,  until around
> 10AM. Around 10AM what PAT called "limited service" was started on the Red
> Line. The Blue Line didn't get up and running until much later and full
> service took several hours to get running. Where did these people learn how
> to run a railroad?????
>

Yeah, I wondered that myself. Rich Fitzgerald seems to be activist in terms
of
his county management style; I suspect if you can get a bug in his ear, that
might get fixed.

>
> THIRD ON THE list is short story fiction, about Pittsburgh, with streetcars
> mentioned in the story lines. I have selected three excerpts from three
> different books. These books are very interesting especially if one really
> gets the "minds' eye" involved in the reading process. You will become a
> part of the story.
>
> Story 1--Excerpt from "Out of the Furnace" by Thomas Bell.


Which was assigned reading, for me, in high school.

>
> FINALLY THE FOURTH  ITEM on tonight's happenings is the current television
> ad being run by Citizens Bank. Several Citizens Bank employees are in their
> branch break room. The bank customers have suddenly started giving gifts to
> the Citizens Bank employees because Citizens doesn't charge a lot of fees.
> Two of the employees appear wearing sweaters with "No 1 Banker" on the
> front of both sweaters. Another employee turns, looks at the two sweater
> guys and says, "Youins can't both be number one bankers." This, after all
> that every school in Allegheny has been doing for years to curb the
> corruption of the English language in the Pittsburgh area and this bank
> gets it started again !!
>
> I unironically use "yinz" in everyday speech, and all of my foreign
colleagues understand it now.



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