[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh 7-Charles Street abandonment

[Shirley Tennyson]

   C.D. Palmer was no kind and friendly executive, but he was privately
a nice guy. He hated the Union. In 19447-49 when I was there, Tom
Fitzgerald would very oc- casionally send Palmer out to meet with the
Union President at a busy maximum load point to resolve overloading
complaints from he operators.The operators would see their Union
President out there with the second in command and know their Union was
representing them. Palmer would tell he Union there was no overloading
and they would go back to work.  The only overloadng was on late cars
catching the followers' load but Palmer did not count that. Neither
would I. Get  cars on time. Palmer resent- ed doing checkers' work. He
did not see it as labor relatons.
When Fitzgerald was forced out by age in 1952, Palmer took over. No more
cod- dling e Union. Strike almost every year. Raise the peak load from
75 to 80 despite loss of riders.
Fitzgerald came to Pittsburgh about 1925 and never had a real strike in
his time. The Union Contract had a standard national clause for
compulsory arbitration. The Union go th highest wages in the in- dustry
on rail, but no on bus, a diffrent but related company.
Palmer  took the position that when the contract expired, the
arbitration clause also expired. Maybe it did, but i also make strikes.
Strikes lost revenue and future passengers. Palmer had no judgement. He
was an engineer, not people-wise.           In 1940, the interurbans
were earning only 19 cents per car mile, about half the system average.
Fitzgerald did not manage by car-mile costs. He had each Deparment
compute their portion of the cost then added it up. Interubans had no
unique track cost north of Castle Shannon and averaged about 19 miles
per hour south of there so the cars were earning about $ 3.42 per car
hour. The motorman go paid 85 cents plus maybe 15 cents fringes and
track and car maintenance cost about $ 1.80 per car hour (not much was
done)   so there was a margin of about  62 cents per car hour.
Accontants would spend that on general company administrative costs but
there would be no saving of those costs by abandonment. The 1940
abandonment plan was to avoid future heavy track work.
City car costs were much different, as an operator could average only 12
miles per hour so mileage costs were almost double the interurban but
houly cost was  same.       In 1842, interuban revnue doubled so costs
were not a problem. After the war, people moved out along the interurban
lnes addng passengers as other lines were losing them, as the interubans
did too south of Canonsburg and New Eagle (Riverview Loop).  It took
five interuban cars to carry the 5:00 pm load out of downtown weekdays,
one to Charleroi, one to Washington, one to Riverview, one to Canonsburg
and one to West Library.         The 1948 fare increase that brought on
the federal tax on interuban fares ended the boom, but commuter
ridership was still better than pre-war.
About 1944, P.Ry.Co relaid new rail from Houston to Tylerdale so the
future cost of track maintenançe was reduced, but Mr. Fitzgerald lold
me himself that he could not avoid the interurban fare increase as Anne
X. Alpern would use that to show no increase was needed in the city,
even after 23 years without a fare in- crease while wages doubled. The
1940 re- organization plan was still on the court's mind.  I suggested
that P.Ry.Co institute Blue Ridge type tax free ten-trip commuter
tickets but i was too late to change course.  I also suggested
interurban seats for 1700-1724 PCC cars but management said if Anne X.
Alpern learned of that she would take it to court and hold up  car order
for 100 cars.                In 1948, trolley phones were installed to
impove interurbn dispatching and oper- ations, but i was a "safety
feature" that lawyers did not want to object to. Right up unil
reoranization, they did the best they could as they saw it.
E d  T e n n y s o n