Clipping

[Derrick J Brashear]

--On Tuesday, February 27, 2001 11:43:17 AM -0800 Kenneth Josephson 
<kjosephson at sprintmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Derrick J Brashear wrote:
>
>> But one could also argue the development around Pittsburgh doesn't fit
>> the national norm. And in fact most of the rail lines, electric and
>> otherwise, served corridors along creek and river valleys, which also
>> happened to be where people lived and worked at least early on.
>
> True. It is amazing to those of us from locales with relatively level
> topography  to discover communities within a few miles of each other being
> almost totally isolated. The long narrow valleys and "steps" of the
> mountains also led to a number of heavily travelled, parallel car lines
> at different levels along ridges. Pittsburgh's situation could be called
> unique.

[snip]

> I believe Pittsburgh's geography keeps the city center relevent. I could
> be wrong, but the downtown appeared to be thriving during my last visit
> in 1999. I don't see a grid pattern of bus and rail lines being possible
> in Pittsburgh and its suburbs.  The growth is entrenched along ridges,
> waterways, valley floors and hilltops. That alone may have helped keep
> (rail) transit relevent in Pittsburgh.

Well, see, here's the thing. I would be useful to get from say, McKeesport 
to Monroeville. And you can do it, going through East Pittsburgh. But not 
through North Versailles (North Versailles is growing, now, but the bus 
service to North Versailles has improved not as much as the sources of 
traffic have sprung and grown). On the other hand if we still had a 
rail-based system there'd be no service to the places anyhow; They're 
strung out along US30, not along a rail corridor.

>> On the
>> other hand, what if instead of the West Busway something could have been
>> done with the extensive private right of way which existed from the West
>> End services, and then perhaps tied into the former Panhandle right of
>> way outbound of the tunnel?
>
> Looking at a map, it appears feasible. Could residents of the West End be
> lured back to the rails? I always thought that if more of the streetcar
> system survived under PAT management, some the trolleys would have been
> shifted to parallel railroad rights of way (dual gauge?) as industrial
> rail traffic declined. It would have speeded up rail transit and would
> have gotten transit vehicles off the surface streets.

Sharing rail rights of way isn't as simple as that, especially in this day 
of lawsuits. Look at what happened after (Ricky?) Gates ran that Conrail 
train into the path of a Northeast Corridor passenger train... These days 
it's all about having exclusive use of your tracks, and while maybe earlier 
that would not have been the case I can't see that until around 1965 things 
would have been suitable to that, and probably not even then. The Pennsy 
quit their commuter service in... 1963 I think and I can't see why they'd 
want PAT on their rails after that. If they did it would be "give us money, 
let us run trains". And they didn't even seem to be overly enthused with 
that!

-D