MORE Thoughts -- PRCo--2000 -- What Trolleycars Remained??

[Jim Holland]

Greetings!

> On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Jim Holland wrote:

> >       I believe that had PRCo survived until today that they would have
> > systematically replaced the trolleycars rather than rebuild the lines in
> > many but not all cases.

> Derrick J Brashear wrote:

> I'm not sure I believe that. Or rather, I'm not sure how much of that
> would have happened. When my father was in high school track was relaid in
> Fifth Avenue, 1962 or so. Obviously someone thought rail had *some* future
> in Pittsburgh. If PAT hadn't happened, I'd bet more of the system (though
> certainly not all of it) would be left.

	There may have been an obligation with the City for replacement and
street repairs in that area - m-a-n-y  factors could have affected the
decision to renew rail.
	Plus, even if PRCo remained, there was still much hostility to
trolleycars  --  this was strong in the Burgh in the 1950s!  So many
would want the old fashioned cars gone - McKeesport did, according to
Beal's book!  And the inner portion of the 56 was killed when the
Glenwood bridge was replaced - can't put tracks on the new bridge, no
sireeee!  While there was a hint of rerouting the 55 to keep it running,
that never happened.  So projects like this would have killed the
trolleycars as well!
	And with E. Liberty turned into a mall, that would have killed many car
lines there.
	It is easy to make a case for retaining the car lines regardless of the
construction but the cars were not wanted by the powers that be.
	Forbes and inner Fifth seem to be likely candidates to be kept for a
time - and maybe Liberty and Penn because of the speed available here -
at least when I remember it.  Communities just outbound of 32nd would
benefit from this.
	What else would you keep?  Pretty late for me - difficult to
rationalize at this point!

James B. Holland

        Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1940  --  1950
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