If I had to pick one or two low floor cars for preservation, it would not have been one of the strangest cars ... not one of 9 unique cars but something a lot more common --- the everyday car that people saw, or something more historically significant.  I would have had two choices.

1.   The closest I could get to the original design for a double end low-floor car.   By the time the museum was created in 1953, all of the four converted trailers had long been scrapped.   But I would have taken a 4200 because it would have been as close as it gets to the prototype low-floor car.

Why?   Because it was in Pittsburgh that the first car with smaller motors and small wheels was used and it lead to all the Birney cars and all those thousands of subsequent lightweights in the late teens and twenties.  P. N. Jones started a revolution with his thinking.   

2.  If I had to have a single-end low floor, I would have kept simple and as recent as possible and as easily maintained by museum crews as possible.   I would not have gone for an MU car.   I would have picked the best 5400 or 5500 I could have found.

But we all understand that railfans all seem to want to save the unique.   Old Rivets (GG1 4800 was saved because it was one of a kind) but all of the boxy P5 motors got away.   We are just lucky that the there is still a Pennsy K4 around but no one bothered to save a New York Central Hudson.  I guess it was too common.       


On Feb 18, 2012, at 9:50 AM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> Mr.Schneider,
> The low-3750s are the Sewickley cars aren't they.  In case you didn't know
> 3756 is at the museum isn't it.  It is part of the group converted for 23-line
> use, 3750-3759.
> 
> 
>  
> Phil
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider@comcast.net>
> To: Pittsburgh Railways <pittsburgh-railways@dementix.org> 
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 7:41 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Making sense of the PRC assignments....
> 
> 
> By the way, for those who want to make sense of the PRC car assignments, one thing that always bewildered me was the assignment of the 3750 series to Tunnel.   You will see that on that 1952 list that has been cited on the list a little while ago.
> 
> The high 3750s were fitted with left front doors for use on Sewickley.   The logical barn would have been Ingram.   The crews worked out of Ingram.   The low 3750s were used as extra cars on the interurbans.
> 
>