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

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Probably 90% of the Philly routes were also ditched, with the majority of them going
between 1955 and 1958.  Half of what remained were heavily patronized subway-surface
lines using tunnels that the city had finished constructing in 1955 ... kind of hard to
get eradicate the value the taxpayers gave you only months before.  The non-subway
surface lines (6-stripe, 23, 47, 50, 53, 56, and 60 were very heavily patronized.
Route 23, for example, required something on the order of 90 cars in 1948 and the rush
hour peak was probably over 50 units even in the 1980s.  When much of the city's heavy
industry was situated along the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline in northeast
Philadelphia, route 56 had incredibly heavy peak hour ridership ... its gone today.
Route 53 connected the wealty homes along Wayne Avenue with the Broad Street subway at
Broad and Erie.  Route 60 was a very heavy crosstown line ... one of the last in the
city that really needed two-man cars for something more than a place to put conductors
who couldn't run cars or buses.

Philadelphia had a street grid pattern ... great for people moving in all directions of
the compass.  Pittsburgh had many examples of parallel routes with no connections
between them because the tracks were separated by a few blocks horizontally and several
hundred feet vertically.  Routes 10, 6, 8, and 13 make good examples of parallel but
isolated lines.
I worked up some comparisons several years ago ... the combination of all the
Pittsburgh Railways and West Penn fares were no where near what trolleys in the eastern
cities collected.  Baltimore alone had more transit riders per day than the sum of all
the systems in southwestern Pennsylvania ... about two million a day in 1925 in
Maryland's largest city.  Philly also had a lot more riders than Pittsburgh.  Judging
by people I see waiting at bus stops, SEPTA's city transit division still hauls a lot
of people.  mrb190 wrote:

> You're right about the Penn & Liberty routes.  The Frankstown alone could have
> continued on to East Liberty without much change.  Even after the route reaches the
> point at which Penn goes into the mall area, this was open to buses only, as I
> recall.  Today, of course, it is open to all vehicular traffic.  Also, even though
> a highrise was built above Penn Avenue at the point where the mall starts, Penn
> still exists with the building acting as a tunnel.   Not sure, but I think where
> Frankstown Ave begins just off of Penn, that the routing has changed somewhat.
> That is probably the only point where the line would have had to have been
> re-routed, but again, I am not sure.  The landmark buildings are gone, so it's hard
> to tell.    I think the 87 could have survived as well, although from what I
> understand, the long Ardmore Blvd. p.r.w. was not used much by commuters.  Wonder
> if it would be today?
>
> The Negley & Highland routes could have continued as well, only facing the
> challenge of the one-way sections through Oakland of Fifth & Forbes.  I have often
> envisioned a track coming up the bus lane on Fifth which would provide two-way
> service again for Fifth Ave. carlines.
>
> Wonder what made Philadelphia so different from Pittsburgh that Philly retained so
> many of its lines while Pittsburgh ditched 95% of them?  Yes, I know about the
> anti-trolleys sentiments of local Pittsburgh government, didn't Philly have an
> equal share of subber-tire proponents?
>
> Jim Holland wrote:
>
> > 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
> >     To e-mail privately, please click here: mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
> > N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.mcs.net:80/~weyand/nmra/