[PRCo] WP -- TV -- PRCo Map

[Jim Holland]

> ROGER Jenkins wrote:

> Well Fred if two publications said it was TV that reduced the riding on
> West Penn and you did not believe it, what do you think the real reason
> was? To me it sounded plausible that the draw of watching Ed Sullivan
> and a whole lot of other things on the 12 inch sets like my neighbor had
> where us kids went to watch  it, made perfect sense. Instead of riding
> the trolley to the local bijou , people stayed home glued to that new
> fangled picture box !

	In a sense, it is kind of amazing that WP hung on as long as it did -
how many other interurbans survived longer - North Shore, South Shore,
parts of PE, and ???????   Several Pgh. interurbans to Butler
disappeared in the 1930s  --  and there were  m-a-n-y  other interurbans
that went out in the 1930s!!  The die was already cast for WP, other
interurbans, and even the local trolleycars  l-o-n-g  before WP actually
succumbed.
	In fact, were it not for WW2, there would have been far fewer
trolleycars in existance.  Politics, taxes, legislation (renewing rails,
repaving streets, etc.), falling ridership, falling income, rising,
costs, etc., etc., etc. are just a few of the other items that
contributed to WP abandonment.
	TV might have been a  *factor*  in the death knell of WP  --  but it
was far from the only factor!  It may have been in this sense that the 
*abandonment--of--WP--because--of--TV*  was meant  --  it was just the
final nail in the coffin that was already built and full of many other
nails.
	It seems that we should be careful of criticizing other railfans and
their statements  --  words do not always comvey the complete meaning 
--  and the hearer can  *hear*  something other than what was intended! 
Even present day marriages dissolve because of poor communications, and
that is far more serious than than a mis-interpretation of trolleycar
history!  Let's assume that the original PERC authors never intended to
decive with their statement and that there is most definitely an element
of truth to the statement.

	ROGER:	send an email to the PTM website to inquire about the 1959--PRCo
map:  http://www.pa-trolley.org/

-- 
James B. Holland

        Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  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/