Route 9, 8, PHB&NC

[Edward H. Lybarger]

Prior to the 1914 introduction of the "destination" numbers that are
basically familiar to us, the public as well as the company used three-digit
"route" numbers that were based on the operating divisions (car houses,
essentially).  Their use continued well into the '30s for internal purposes.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
[mailto:owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org]On Behalf Of Donald Galt
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 3:30 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: RE: Route 9, 8, PHB&NC


On 9 Nov 99, at 13:38, Fred Schneider wrote:

> By the way, Route 9 was not always a transfer route.  I remember an old
> Pittsburgh map that my father had that showed two different routes to
> the old Charles Street carhouse.  Route 7 Charles Street ran through
> Manchester.  Route 9 came out Federal Street and Perrysville Avenue from
> downtown, then turned down the Charles Street hill.

The Arnold report, tabulating ridership statistics for 21 February 1910,
shows 109-Charles Street and 110-Charles Street Transfer (the numbering
system in the Arnold report is a mystery to me.)

The report lists the round-trip mileage of route 110 as 1.25 miles, plus .66
miles "dead" mileage. A mile and a quarter is essentially the distance from
Irwin Street to Perrysville Avenue and back. Route 109, with a round trip
mileage of 6.22 miles, has the same .66 mi dead mileage, which more or
less corresponds to the distance from Irwin Street to Charles St. Carhouse.

Six 19' 3" cars are shown assigned to Charles Street Transfer - this seems
mightily puzzling!

Onward:

My 1930 street map shows Charles Street Transfer as a separate route so
named.

This map lists all the "transfer" routes unnumbered - Schoenville,
Thornburg,
Shadeland, Rebecca, to name just a handful. I had always assumed that
these shuttles didn't receive numbers until much later.

D2