Laketon Road -- Was: This Last Week

[Fred Schneider]

Matt:    I hope you understand that the PRC low-floor cars in service in the
1950s were all high speed cars.  Because they could "get over the railroad"
in approximately the same time as a PCC, there was no reason to restrict the
older cars to certain routes.  All the car houses in Pittsburgh had an
allocation of yellow cars in 1954 ... Plummer St., Bunkerhill, Homewood,
Craft, Tunnel, Ingram, Manchester, and Keating.   So they probably all went
out of service about the same time ... give or take a few weeks, as
schedules were revised after the strike.   The only routes which would
logically not have seen yellow cars would be those that might have had an
identical base and rush hour car allocation.  I think 21 FINEVIEW got 1690s
before all the yellow cars were gone ... if it only required two cars in
base and no change in rush, it would not have seen a yellow car.   On the
other hand, 21 was the last route to have base service with yellow cars.


Philadelphia, on the other had, had a mix of low-speed two-motor cars and
PCCs.  Therefore, PRT and PTC assigned cars so that all cars on the same
route were compatible.  On weekends, cars were shifted so that lines had
newer cars.  For example, all the Arch Street lines used Nearside cars on
weekdays but modernized "eighty-hundreds" on weekends.  Route 15 Girard used
Nearside cars on weekdays and Saturdays, and PCCs on Sundays.  Sometimes,
carbarn assignments changed from weeays to weekends in order to accomplish
the car shifts.  
		-----Original Message-----
		From:	mrb190 [mailto:mrb190+ at pitt.edu]
		Sent:	Sunday, March 05, 2000 11:17 PM
		To:	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		Subject:	Re: Laketon Road -- Was: This Last Week

		(another forward --djb)

		Thanks again for a great history lesson.  Pointing out the
actual lines these
		cars last ran on  or stopped running altogether anywhere
because certain major
		lines were being abandoned, really put this all in to
perspective.

		Matt

		Fred Schneider wrote:

		> When did the low-floor cars quit running?  Last double-end
car route was 12
		> Evergreen in December 1953.  Corey Ave, Donora, Castle
Shannon - Mt.
		> Lebanon, and three Washington lines quit in 1953.  Laketon
Road was 1952.
		> There were a host of other double end lines running after
WW2 that were
		> either converted to PCCs (Spring Garden, Glassport,
Heidelberg, and route
		> 48) or abandoned outright (Reedsdale transfer,  Evans
Avenue, Library St in
		> Braddock, Schoenville,  Thornburg, Atwood Street (single
end cars in rush
		> hour), 36th St. Transfer.  I'm sure I've forgotten some.
		>
		> The single-end low-floor cars were gradually phased out
due to route
		> abandonments, normal post-war patronage declines,
replacements with newer
		> equipment (666 PCC cars), and protracted labor disputes
which drove away
		> traffic.  Without looking at actual scrap data, it occurs
to me that the
		> 1000 and 1100 PCCs replaced the last high floor cars and
perhaps some 4700s.
		> The 1200s began to eat deeper into the fleet.  By 1949
there were major
		> patronage declines which continued year after year.  And
there were some
		> route abandonments during the period:  Etna and Millvale
quit in 1952, the
		> interurban abandonments in 1953 released about 15 PCCs for
city duty (1700s
		> and 1s moved onto Castle Shannon replacing 1400s to other
routes).
		>
		> There were quite a few hundred single-end low-floor cars
in the 4800-4939,
		> 5000-5159, 5200-5282, 5400-5464, 5500-5549, and 3750-3769
groups around in
		> 1952-1953 but I suspect not many more than a hundred were
being used in the
		> rush hour after 1952.  Route 8 Perrysville was probably
the second heaviest
		> line in the system at the time, and I don't think it used
more than 3 to 5
		> 5500s in the rush hours on weekday.  Keating alone had
long lines of surplus
		> yellow cars in 1953 and Ingram was filled with them being
scrapped.  The
		> company planned to keep some yellow cars and toward that
end, low-air alarms
		> were installed on a number of them at Homewood Shops
during the 1954 labor
		> dispute.  I've been told the scheduling people continued
to rewrite trips
		> out of the schedules all through the six-week long strike
but they still had
		> too many cars on the street in the summer when the
trainmen settled.  Some
		> yellow cars came out in June and were promptly discharged
from active duty.
		> I have no idea when where the last one ran but June 1954
is a safe
		> supposition.
		>
		> In general, the oldest cars were scrapped first ... the
4700s.  After the
		> war, the remaining unconverted single-end low-speed cars
went ... that wiped
		> out all the 5100s except 5159.  The details of scrappings
are available by
		> car number ... how much detail do you require?
		>
		> In April 1955, I watched a barn man at Keating pump up air
on an idle 5500
		> and take the last one from that car house to Ingram for
scrapping.
		>
		> Ten high speed double-end cars were retained until 1956
until emergency use;
		> nine were scrapped and 4398 went to Arden.  That was the
last year that
		> there were any cars in the fleet that could be used in
passenger service.
		>
		>                 -----Original Message-----
		>                 From:   Carl Zager
[mailto:czager at bloomington.in.us]
		>                 Sent:   Friday, March 03, 2000 8:20 AM
		>                 To:     pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		>                 Subject:        Laketon Road -- Was: This
Last Week
		>
		>                 Do we know how the replacement of the
low-floor cars took
		> place? Were they
		>                 retired by condition or on certain routes
(or shops) first?
		> When/where did
		>                 the last one run in revenue service?
		>
		>                 I noted in a message to Fred that our
family used to ride a
		> bus from
		>                 Laketon Road into Wilkinsburg where we
transferred to
		> trolley to Homewood,
		>                 East Liberty, downtown. And often it was a
low-floor.
		>
		>                 The ubiqutous dot-dash map of PRy in
Parkinson's book
		> suggests that the
		>                 Laketon trolley route was abandoned in
1952. We lived on
		> Parkway, just off
		>                 of Laketon, from 1948-1955. Admittedly, I
would've only been
		> 9 in '52, but
		>                 I was always aware of streetcars and
streetcar tracks (I
		> remember
		>                 commenting on the "cobble stone" pattern
-- perpendicular
		> between the
		>                 rails and parrallel outside the rails when
we still were
		> living on Bennett
		>                 Street). I just don't remember 1. ever
riding a trolley into
		> Wilkinsburg
		>                 from Laketon Road, nor 2. any trolley
tracks on that section
		> of Laketon.
		>
		>                 Now that I have reached the age of the
number of Heinz
		> varieties...who
		>                 knows? <grin>
		>
		>                 And yes, I know the paving bricks are not
actually cobble
		> stones. That's
		>                 just what my family always called them.
Imagine my
		> disappointment to
		>                 discover how even more uneven and rustic
actual cobble
		> stones really are.
		>
		>                  Carl Zager
		> KB9RVB
		>                  czager at bloomington.in.us
		> http://www.mccsc.edu/~czager