THE TRANSFER TABLE
The Wilmington Chapter NRHS Official Newsletter
Internet Edition
| VOLUME 19 NO. 2 | FEBRUARY 1997 |
Back To Wilmington Chapter Web Site
MEETING NOTES
The January meeting of the Wilmington Chapter was called to order by President Phil Snyder and the minutes read by former secretary Ron Cleaves in place of Walt Robbins. New Treasurer Ralph Stevens then gave his report. After National Director Ed Thornton's report, member Dick Hall reported on Amtrak buying old box cars and reefers for mail handling and their need to find additional freight trucks. Member Dan Frederick reported on what appeared to be some amazing schedule modifications by Amtrak; for example dropping a station stop in Dallas but adding a daily stop in White Fish! This was explained as a way to get more mail business.
You will want to continue to check the Schedule Notes and Chapter Events for updates on the great proposed trips and special events! The Chapter Picnic this year is planned for Mt. Cuba. It was picked over the usual excursion to Strasburg for a little variety that still gets us a train ride (hopefully steam?), fresh air and picnic facilities, and it's even closer to home! Also, instead of two do-it-yourself meetings in the summer, we'll try to get a behind-the-scenes look at CTC operations in Philadelphia.
After a break to draw tickets for Ed Thornton's fantastic calendar and poster give-away, Phil Snyder presented part two of his cross country slides. These included his rare mileage detour around a trestle fire (whose smoke we saw) from Zemay, New Mexico to Newan Kansas via Amarillo, Texas. We even saw Illinois Central steam while passing through Brickhaven.
From The Editor
Thanks to James Lyon and Mercy McCallister of Stewart
& Stevenson Services, Inc. for providing the COLOR in this issue! And thanks to member
Phil Toman for the very artistic W&W handbill. My SPECIAL REQUEST still holds. No one
has come forward yet with a photo of the namesake of our newsletter! Please contact me as
soon as possible if you have any prints or slides of the transfer table in the Wilmington
shops. Important notice: this could be the last Transfer Table that you will receive if
you have not renewed your membership. Please insure that we have received your check for
dues for 1997.
** NOTICE: IN CASE OF BAD WEATHER **
In the event that our normal "THIRD THURSDAY NRHS meeting is canceled due to inclement weather, it will be postponed and held on the FOURTH THURSDAY. And, in the event that must again be canceled, it will NOT be rescheduled. We will simply have to wait for the next month's normal "third Thursday" meeting. If the weather looks bad or is predicted to be bad, you may telephone the Claymont Community Center to see if it will be open that evening for our meeting.
ANNUAL PHOTO CONTEST
The Wilmington Chapter's Annual Photo Contest will be held at the regular Chapter meeting on Thursday, May 15th.
Here are the guidelines for entering pictures in this year's contest:
CATEGORIES
WWW SITE COMING SOON
Wilmington Chapter will soon join over 25 other NRHS Chapters that have a "home page" on the world wide web. Russ Fox, through his company Fox Information Services, will donate his time to set up the site and place it as a section of his site: www.marketstation.com. When complete, the site will contain a history of the NRHS and our Chapter, convention information, Chapter meeting and events info, membership info including an application form, news and stories (to include an electronic edition of the "Transfer Table"). Also, there will be links to other NRHS Chapters, major railroads and railroad related sites of all gauges.
Russ is planning a section displaying member's prints on a rotating basis. When ready, Russ will ask members to submit good quality black and white or color prints for this section. Submissions should depict railroading in Newcastle County or a Chapter event. The Wilmington Chapter web site should be ready in March. Look for the address in next month's Transfer Table".
BUCKINGHAM VALLEY TROLLEY ASSOCIATION
NEWS BULLETIN
October, 1996
FARES, Continued
by Henry Adamck
In our last encounter, we discussed the various city transit fares over the last 75 years or so. In the course of preparing a listing this complex a few gremlins appeared:
1. The zone fare rationalization was 3/4/59 not 55;
2. Token sale from 1950 on were in lots of 25 or 10. Additionally, thanks to member C Breslin we have specific dates on a couple of the fare raises noted!
1. $.23-1/15/62
2. $.25 - 2/5/63
3. $.30- 2/6/69
On of the more interesting aspects of PTC (and PRT) fares (and even SEPTA) was how they were collected and accounted for. T. E Mitten did not believe in fare boxes, believing to some extent that their use reflected on the integrity of the employees. Consequently fare collection on the PRT / PTC was a manual, hand-collection system until the NCL era. (In reality Mitten may have preferred the complexities of the manual system to the mass coin collection of a locked box system or maintenance of recording fare boxes. The Philadelphia area was a hotbed of hand collected fares long after PTC went to fare boxes. Red Arrow rail cars were hand collection until 1966/69. Jersey buses still are for interstate lines and even tiny Auch Interborough was hand collected in the early 1960's.
So how did the system work? Each car and bus was equipped with two registers (Cash /Token) activated either manually or electrically from the operators / conductors position. Un-modernized streetcars used the large round style (a la' car 8534) buses used the small square manual style (a la' car 76), and PCC's / Modernized 5200/8000 can used an electrically activated version of the small square register. Bus fare registers were mounted on the front bulkhead behind the destination sign. Streetcar registers were mounted in various positions depending on the type of car. (Note: the 90 "Boomer" PCC's from Kansas City / St. Louis used the round manual registers from conventional cars for about a year until re-converted to fare box operation, and some older buses got them in 1955 to provide the smaller registers for the new GM buses.)
The manual registers were activated by leather straps rigged from the operator / conductor position. The electric registers were operated by large buttons located in similar positions. Additionally on streetcars, the most active register (Tokens) could be activated by foot through a pedal or button located on the floor of the operator/conductor area.
As each passenger paid a fare it was registered on the appropriate meter. Each register displayed two sets of numbers which ascended one digit with each registration. One set was a trip meter in large numbers easily read from anywhere in the vehicle. These numbers could be set back manually whenever desired. The other set were very small at the base of the register and were the formal accounting of fares. They could not be reversed. conductor/operator was required to take a reading at the beginning and end of each tour of duty on a vehicle
It sounds pretty simple, but in reality, it was not since except for streetcar conductor, the operator has to collect / register fares in conjunction with controlling the vehicle in traffic or even more difficult on a fee-wheeling bus which often additionally required shifting gears. The cash fare register only was used for case fares. If a route had a suburban zone(s), the meter had to be read each time the zone area was entered / left. (PTC was unusual that, until the suburban zones were rationalized in 1959, the city base fare was not collected for boarding passenger in the outer zones who only paid the zone rate i.e. a Rt. 6 passenger only paid $.10 if riding locally in Glenside, but would pay $.20 if riding below City Line. Most other transit systems collected the regular base fare and only collected the lower zone increment if more than one zone was crossed). The token register was a catchall used to record not only the token fares but depending on the era, school tickets, commutation tickets (1954/5) and certain paid (but refundable) transfers.
Operators were not provided with a cash bank but were expected to bring along a small change fund as a starter until enough fares were collected to provide further funds. They, however, were supplied with tokens and transfers by the company when reporting for duty.
So off they went, throughout the day making change, selling tokens, issuing transfers and registering as necessary. When turning in at the end of the day all of this activity had to be accounted for using a way-bill. On this form all of the register readings were recorded and the number of fares calculated. For cash fares this number was converted into the value for both base and suburban fares collected. The token register was move complex since the number of school tickets commutation tickets and transfers, as applicable, had to be subtracted to determine the number of token fares. These were added to the tokens issued, tokens remaining subtracted to determine token sales which were converted to the cash value. Done? No, as the value of commutation tickets and transfer sales had to be calculated by listing the respective beginning / ending serial numbers and determining number sold.
Finally the amount due the company was determined by adding base fares, token / ticket /transfer sales. If short, it had to be made up personally. If over, it was a good idea to turn the overage in as a regular corps of spotters (Spooks) were employed to ride vehicles to observe and report on fare registration and other matters. If under registering was noted and no overage turned in, one could be subject to discipline.
As part of the 1955/7 modernization, fare boxes were introduced beginning March, 1956 for Germantown Depot routes. Depots were converted periodically until the last, Woodland, was converted on June, 1957. Manual collection did not totally disappear until August, 1957, as the planned conversion of Rt. 46 was delayed until then and it was easier to continued to collect fares by hand on this isolated operation rather than put fare boxes in the double-ended cars used on the route.
City fare boxes were locked boxes in which after inspecting the fare it was dropped into a sealed box to be collected by an independent work force at the depot. Operators were now given a full change bank daily which had to be returned at the end of the day in addition to token sales. The two suburban depots (Willow Grove and Fulsome), however, received registering fare boxes which recorded the coins and returned them to the operator. This was but a different variant of the old system with meter readings, etc. When these depots were closed or sold, all fare collection was through locked boxes. Transfer fees were resumed in 1965, but were collected by simply dumping them in the box. Change making on surface vehicles ended in 1968 with the exact fare system.
A Whimsical Explanation:
WHY ARE THE RAILS OF AMERICAN RAILROADS
4 FOOT 8 & 1/2 INCHES APART?
Modified from items on Internet (by a Rob Hoffer and others), forwarded to me by Ed Thornton and edited by Greg AJamian.
They are that way in the U.S. because they were that way in England where railroads got started and it just carried over.
So the reason = foreign imports.
They were that way in England because the people who built the first railroads were the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways.
So the reason = lack of creativity.
The trams were that way because people who built the pre-railroad tramways were same people who built the wagons and carriages and they used the same jigs and tools.
So the reason = out-dated tools & technology.
The wagon wheels were that far apart because the ruts in the old, bog distance roads were that far apart, and if they tried to use any other spacing, the wheels would break.
So the reason = following some old rut.
The ruts were that far apart because the first long distance roads were built by the Romans for their legions and the ruts were formed by the wheels of the Roman war chariots.
So the reason = military occupation.
The Roman war chariots were all alike because Imperial Rome kept the Empire together by decree and it was through standardization that they managed to control that big of an Empire.
So the reason = the original military specification.
The real reason Imperial Rome picked that spacing for the wheels on their war chariots was dictated by the basic engineering required to harness a horse to pull the chariot. They probably wanted to keep the horses hooves out of the ruts to avoid physical harm to the horse from having its foot turned the wrong way by it landing in a wheel rut.
So the reason = animal preservation.
But the reason for designing the war chariots the way they did was simply dictated by the anatomy of the standard war horse and the need to construct the chariot in such as way as to make room for the width of the horse's body...
So the real, true, and ultimate reason why the wheels of the American Iron Horse are four feet, eight and one half inches apart is entirely due to some horse's ass. [Please note that the Editor is NOT responsible for any conclusions you might draw from reading that last line outside of the context of this article.]
Or...the other version:
The reason the rails are 4 foot 8 & 1/2 inches apart is because that it is the universal overall average common distance between the neck and the ankles of the average, run-of-the-mill, damsel-in-distress.
NEWS BITS
A few of our Chapter members have reported seeing the new RoadRailer Trailers on the rear end on the southbound Amtrak train which passes through Wilmington Station between 10:00 and 10:30 AM. Ed Thornton reported that regardless of the mail volume involved, you should always expect to see at least 3 trailers because they are later sent to 3 different destinations.
The Reading & Northern has acquired three new U-boats: former CSX ex-L&N #2392, former Lehigh Valley #501 now #2393, and former Lehigh Valley #504 now #2394. Also Conrail #8710 (former Reading #1510) is now at Jim Thorpe, PA. (from Hawk Mountain Chapter's The Hostler]
The Transfer Table
The Transfer Table is published six to ten times per year as the newsletter of the Wilmington Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Items in this publication do not represent the official position of either Officers or Members of the Wilmington Chapter or the Editor of this publication.
Permission to reprint articles and news items appearing herein is granted to NRHS Chapters and other newsletters provided appropriate credit is given.
Contributions are always welcome and should be sent to the editor at P.O. Box 1136, Hockessin, DE 19707-5136.
Deadline for entries is the 25th of the month.
Chapter Officers
President - Phil Snyder
Vice President & Historian - Ron Cleaves
Treasurer - Ralph Stevens, Jr.
Secretary - Walt Robbins
National Director - Ed Thornton
Editor - Greg Ajamian
Public Relations - Ken Berg
Event Photographer - Doug Weaver
Back To Wilmington Chapter Web Site
This material may be reprinted without permission
as long as it appears as shown above and is not changed in any way. Credit must be given
to the Wilmington Chapter NRHS and it's Internet Web Site at: http://foxcity.com/nrhs/wilm/wilm.htm.
Mail: Wilmington Chapter - NRHS, P.O. Box 1261, Wilmington, DE 19899-1261, USA
E-mail: edthorn@bellatlantic.net
Webmaster: fis@foxcity.com
Copyright © 1997, 1998 Wilmington Chapter NRHS/Fox Information Services, Inc.