I believe Speedrail would have survived because Jay Maeder and Don Leistikow and many of the other employees were there and had the will and the guts to make it survive. Jay himself lived until 1975 and by then there would have been heirs apparent. 

=Lou=

~~~~~~~~~~ **-=\/=-** ~~~~~~~~~~

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.       Robert Anthony


-----Original Message-----
From: Don L. Leistikow
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 5:22 PM
To: milwaukee-electric@lists.dementia.org
Cc: emory1522@wi.rr.com
Subject: [milwaukee-electric] Re: This and that ~ Speedrail

Matt A and list:   Would Speedrail survived if... the 1950 Labor Day
Accident hadn't happened?  A challanging thought.  
Ridership was strong prior to the 'accident'.   Rushhour service on the
Waukesha Line was heavy during the rush-hours.  Duplex trains were
moving on a 15 minute headway beginning at 6:00 am and at 5:00 pm.
Seating into and out of the Public Service Building during those hours,
was virtually a seated load.             

On the Hales Corners Line, the same was true however, single cars
provided most of the service.   This oddity was occassioned by the need
for West Junction Duplexes which ran between the Waukesha Duplexes and
the HC cars.  The purpose of the WJ trains operating ahead of the HC
cars, was to handle the stranding room only WJ trains.                  

Now consider that the Waukesha line was 18 miles long whereas the HC
line was only 13 miles long.  The real purpose of off rush-hour
transportaton was to balance WJ service between PSB and WJ, into even
thirds, time wise.  Basically, half hourly service was available during
daylight hours in that local service.  The only gap was the one hour
space between 12:10 pm and 1:10 pm on the Waukesha Line.  Add to that,
Line Car (D 21) which operated between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm.  Of course,
the Line Car was an extra operating on train orders from the Dispatcher
in the PSB.                              

Actually, the PSB - WJ half hourly service was not really necessary, as
seating counts verified.  Hourly service, off rush-hours, would have
been adequate.     

I should mention that rush-hour service to Waukesha was Limited.  No
local passengers were allowed on those trains or cars.  Therefore, they
only made transfer points (crosstown services) and stops to discharge
passengers began at Lovers Lane Road, aka S.108th street or Wisconsin
State Highway 100.  This was the first landing west of WJ on the
Waukesha branch.                                    

Don L.



-- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
-- Type: Message/RFC822
-- Size: 4k (4237 bytes)
-- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/milwaukee-electric/ecartIdolWF