[PRCo] Streetcar pranks

[Bob Rathke]

A bar of hand soap was the rail grease of choice in some neighborhoods around Halloween time. 
  
On the least night - and early next morning - of East End trolleys in January, 1967 I rode as many of the last runs as possible, and I remember numerous "jumpers" waiting for us, especially in the East Pittsburgh area. Maybe it was an organized effort.  :-) 

----- Original Message -----

From: "PC" <pcc_sr at yahoo.com> 
To: "Western PA Trolley discussion" <pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 10:42:01 AM 
Subject: Re: [PRCo] Streetcar pranks 

Another interesting find.  It seems these 'jumpers' just disabled the trolley; they did not board for rides.  Pranks for sure Mr.Cramer. 
I was onboard a Charleroi car, one of the 3800s, when the pole dewired; the retriever did its job.  The motorman allowed the car to coast 
a considerable distance before resetting the pole.  After this was done he told us why.  Apparently a group of 'boys' were tugging strongly 
on a guy support for the line pole which caused the overhead to gyrate and dewire the pole.  As he was not able to stop fast enough to 
prevent this he coasted until out of sight.  He hoped this would confuse the boys who would assume the car could not travel without 
connection to the overhead. 

He then told us this is why the PCCs have their catcher above the rear windows.  Yet there is a picture on the university site of a PCC in 
Oakland who climbed on the rear of the PCC (in stopped traffic apparently) to pull the pole from the overhead.  We have seen it here 
before.  The operator also told us the old yellow cars had their catcher located on a vertical window sill which made it high but reachable by 
the average operator but not younger boys.  Still, boys would ride the coupler then pull the pole when the car stopped and they departed. 

Interurbans could not put the retriever above the windows because of the tug of war necessary to reset it.  Operators never mentioned boys 
pulling the pole by hand on interurban cars; they would certainly risk fingers if not the whole hand wouldn't they. 

I have heard 'rumors' about grease on rails, but this in the 1960s or 1970s in other cities. 


PC 



-------------------------------------------- 
On Tue, 1/28/14, DF Cramer <alto_trombone at hotmail.com> wrote: 

 Subject: [PRCo] Streetcar pranks 
 To: "pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org" <pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org> 
 Date: Tuesday, January 28, 2014, 3:35 AM 
  
 I can imagine this happening everywhere. 
 http://www.myjournalcourier.com/article/20140127/news/301279984 
  
 Dennis F. Cramer 
 http://home.windstream.net/dfc1/ 



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