Old PRCo route numbers

[Vigrass, Bill]

By George, I think he's got it!   Yes indeed, through service in rush hours
appears to be the most logical reason for the number of cars assigned.
Imagine that, providing a through one-seat ride!  What an innovative idea.
Clearly it was not a good idea because PRCo went out of business.  NJT
prefers everyone to transfer to and from the new
Camden-Burlington-Bordentown-Trenton DLRT line because that is "better" and
modern.   The old curmudgeon, Bill. 

	----------
	From:  Fred Schneider [SMTP:fschneider at dli.state.pa.us]
	Sent:  Monday, November 22, 1999 11:53 AM
	To:  pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
	Subject:  RE: Old PRCo route numbers

	Considerable material has passed through this chat room in the last
week
	or so regarding car assignments on shuttle lines.  They often
involve
	trying to make sense out of 1910 routes from a 1950 perspective.   

	When trying to interpret the Bion Arnold report, we should not try
to
	use 1940-1950 memories to aide in the number crunching.  Shuttle in
1950
	meant a car that moved back and forth ... pendelzug in German
	(pendulum).  Shuttle when the Bion-Arnold report was printed often
	indicated a route that matched the 1950 definition in the off peak
but
	which ran into the city in peak hours.  Destinations and sometimes
	streets for a given route often changed over time.  

	The high number of assigned cars in the afternoon peak on Charles
Street
	Transfer, Bon Air, Forbes and Atwood Streets, may very well be
	indicative of through service to downtown Pittsburgh.  Route 81
Atwood
	was the last of many routes to run downtown in the rush hours; in
the
	early 1950s it was your typical one-car shuttle but single-end low
floor
	cars or PCCs were used in the rush hours.  

	Of the 1940s and 1950s shuttles, the one that was once the longest
was
	no doubt Donora.  Yes, it too ran into Pittsburgh, albeit briefly.
The
	service shows in the route cards The Oliver Miller Library at PTM
has
	one print of a 3600 in the wye at the Donora substation carrying a
	tin-hang sign for Pittsburgh-Donora service.  

	Most of the later shuttle or transfer lines did, at one time, run
into
	the city.  There are a few exceptions.  Route 32 P&LE Transfer is a
	shortened version of route 33 Mount Washington.  At its longest
extent
	after 1902, it ran from Mount Washington, down the back side of the
	mountain, through the present West End Circle, then east on Carson
	Street all the way to 36th.  This should give some idea how routes
were
	truncated to save costs.  It also graphically illustrates why we
cannot
	compare a 1950 route with the same thing in 1905, 1910, 1915, 1920,
and
	so forth.  Often attempts to save dollars resulted in fewer routes
	serving the same tracks. 

	In summary, before you try to make sense of 1910 date, first
determine
	over which streets the cars ran between which termini.  Make no
	assumptions other than, "It ain't gonna be what you think it is."