Smithfield Street bridge

[Fred Schneider]

Bill Vigrass:  One of my favorite errors by consultants was the
projected traffic at one of the PATCO stations in Camden ... a
tremendous volumn that based on ship builders commuting to New York
Ship, which naturally never took place because the shipyard had gone out
of business before the consultants did their projections.  Another gem
was, I think, the projections for another station that were high because
of a nearby apartment building (which was on the other side of the creek
with no bridge from it to PATCO) ... was the last one Ferry Avenue?  It
impressed me as pure dumn luck that the aggregate of the goofy
projections was 40,000 people per day, which, curiously was right on the
money.

And then there were those projections that MARTA did to justify the
heavy rail proposal to UMTA ... the numbers equalled the sum of all bus
riders on all existing routes, counted getting on and getting off.  And
if they transferred, they got on and got off again.  The term MARTA used
was "Boarding and Alighting Passengers".  The projection was something
like 3 times the existing bus patronage in 1970!  Must have been OK for
they got the money.  

Haben Sie ein gutes Wochenende.  

  

-----Original Message-----
From: Vigrass, Bill [mailto:billvigrass at hillintl.com]
Sent: Friday, November 19, 1999 2:52 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org; 'Jim Holland'
Subject: RE: Smithfield Street bridge


I figured out how PRC had six cars on the Charles Street Transfer in the
Bion J. Arnold Report. It is really simple.  That would allow one car
each
weekday and the sixth car for Sat. Sun. Hols.   This would allow the
cars to
be cleaned once a week.  Think of the cleaners' time it would have
saved!
I can't think of another reason that makes any sense.  Maybe it was just
an
error.  Consultants do make errors now and then.  That's why you see
"Rev.1"
and other numbers on drawings and specifications.  Bill V.
(consultant).  

	----------
	From:  Jim Holland [SMTP:pghpcc at pacbell.net]
	Sent:  Thursday, November 18, 1999 11:49 PM
	To:  pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
	Subject:  Re: Smithfield Street bridge

	Greetings!

		Couldn't get this to work, Bob!!!!!!!

	Dietrich, Robert J. wrote:
	> 
	> Greetings:
	> 
	> In case you haven't seen it the American memories Collection
has
posted some
	> great information on the Smithfield Street Bridge.  There are
28
photos of
	> both drawings and photographs.  Go to
	> http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hhquery.html and search for
"smithfield street",
	> be sure to set the drop down box to "Match all of these
words".
	> 
	> When you get to a document there is a link to a Larger
Reference
Image.  I
	> took that link on all pages, especially to print the image.
This
same is
	> true for the documents, I could not read the low-res document
images but the
	> larger reference images were legible.  The "Highest Resolution
Image (TIFF)
	> files are fine if you have lots of time or a very fast link.
	> 
	> Enjoy
	> 
	> Bob Dietrich
	> Member East Penn Traction Club (EPTC).

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