Conductor or Motorman Key
A Conductor or motorman’s key; this came with a collection of PE / LARY items and we don’t know about it. It is nickel-plated metal and has the number “3” stamped on it. It measures 3.5” long and has obvious age to it. Any ideas?
Mount Lowe Preservation Society Inc. Collection
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This is a conductor’s key for an Ohmer Fare Register. Upon taking over a shift, the conductor would insert this key into the fare register and turn it. He would then “zero-out” the register from the previous conductor’s total of fares collected and tickets lifted from passengers. It would record his badge number on an internal detail tape inside the register for later removal and forwarding to the Auditor. He would than remove the key until his shift ended, and then repeat the process of closing out the total before the next conductor took over. There should be a number in raised form on the bottom of the keys’ bit on the left side of the photo. The various cuts and protrusions on the key activated various functions of te register. These rergisters can still be seen to this day at the Orange Empire Ry Museum on the PE 300-400 class “Blimps”