Route "#s" Etc

[Vigrass, Bill]

It is not very peculiar to not route through downtown.  Cleveland Railway
Co. had a long tradition of having all lines terminate downtown.  Some City
people wanted through service by the Railway resisted saying that service
characteristics were different on every line, so they would have to
overservice one line to be right on the other.  Through lines also had
domino effect delays that would show up a long time later.  However when the
City took over the Railway in 1942, the first thing they did was to through
route the Lorain Mayfield lines, which gave Lorain Avenue (westside) riders
access to downtown Euclid Avenue.  This was a very long and s l o w line.
But it also had local short turns, Public Square - West 137th St. on the
west side and Euclid East 107th St. on the east side, so even if the through
cars were delayed, there was something running on the busy part of the line.
Getting the days cars untangled if there had been delays meant that west
side cars ended up at Euclid - Windermere and east side cars ended up at
Denison Station at West 65th St.. Same for the crews.  So while it provided
a service to the public, it was indeed difficult to operate.  CTS
established no more through routes.

However in recent years with GCRTA, numerous through routes have been
established.  I think they can do it now because policy headways provide
more capacity than is needed in the off peak, so everything is overserviced
(even on long headways).  Rush hour trippers can still go to Public Square.
For instance, "my" old line, Detroit Ave., is through routed with Superior,
a natural since the streets are end-to-end downtown.   Some other
combinations are not so natural but I guess they are good for the reasons
cited: two downtown layovers or turns are eliminated.  There was little or
no real layover downtown, but I think the schedule allowed for a few minutes
to unload and reload.  

Anyhow, each system does what it thinks best at a given time. And as you all
know, in a public agency or any large organization, there is a certain
amount of inertia that prevents change.  

That's my thought for the day.  Bill Vigrass   11/13/99

	----------
	From:  Jim Holland [SMTP:pghpcc at pacbell.net]
	Sent:  Thursday, November 11, 1999 4:51 PM
	To:  pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
	Subject:  Route "#s"  Etc

	Greetings!

	Donald Galt wrote:
	> 
	> On 11 Nov 99, at 11:54, Derrick J Brashear wrote:
	> 
	> > That's still Pittsburgh practice [signing only for a route name,
not a
	> > destination]
	> 
	> The pecularity of Pittsburgh is that there were no interlinings
through the
	> Triangle.

		Yes - so when a route is listed as 15 miles long in Pgh. it
is from
	city center [centre] to the outer terminal.  Route lengths in other
	cities were measured from and outer terminal  t-h-r-u  downtown to
	another outer terminal and sometimes this made for a rather long
route
	of 15 miles.  But this would be two routes in Pgh and thus those
	extraordinarily long routes from other cities were not so long.
		Imagine interlining Charleroi with Ardmore - or McKeesport!

	> Wolfgang Auer, who has written an extensive treatise on the Vienna
route
	> numbering system, was fair astounded when I pointed out to him
that the
	> car on the cover of "Touring Pittsburgh by Trolley" is heading
AWAY from
	> West View.

		Why be astounded?  That is a system that worked very well
for PRCo.
		I once had a rush hour trip on that read 41 UNION-STEINER
	the normal destination was 41 UNION-LYON.  M-a-n-y  people let my
	coach pass even though they got off many blocks before Steiner - and
I
	had a mostly empty coach.  Most people in SF who have ridden the
same
	line for 20 years or more haven't the slightest idea which streets
they
	pass enroute to their destination!
		On the other hand,  m-a-n-y  people never read past the 41
and then
	curse the driver out for turning short!
		I think the PRCo system of 42 DORMONT  and  43 NEELD makes
	much more sense!

	> Which brings up another point: I assume that 10 and 15 cars
changed signs
	> at West View terminus, right?

		IF the operator remembered!

		The Drake and Library lines were *interlined* on Sunday to
reduce
	overhead - this way it took only 3 cars to operate the two lines as
	opposed to 4 cars if cars were dedicated to one line.  An inbound
	Library car became an outbound Drake and an inbound Drake became an
	outbound Library.  Drake left downtown on the hour, Library on the
	half-hour.  Shannon residence had 30 minute headways.  I have many
	photos of cars at Library with a Drake sign already displayed so I
know
	the photo was made on Sunday.  This was the official place to change
the
	route sign!

	James B. Holland
	------- -- ---------
	        Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo), June of 1949 -- June of
1953
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