[PRCo] Re: Patronage of the Rail Lines (Was: Pittsburgh 7-Charles Street abandonment)

[John Swindler]

>Fred W. Schneider III asked
>
>
>And we've long known that Harrisburg is an exception.  By the way
>Derrick, this city is in Pennsylvania.  Is ATA Transit Management still
>running the show for Capital Area Transit Authority?
>

No, it was ATE Transit Management, and what CAT did early on (probably late 
1970s) was hire Bud Weeks from ATE as their General Manager.

I guess, Fred, if we need a connection to topic, we can always try to plead 
that Harley Swift came from Harrisburg and ATE Management.  Other ATE 
properties included Altoona, Wilkes Barre and Allentown.  Apparently ATE was 
even running the Lehigh Valley Transit rail operations for awhile.



>For those who wonder, CAT is still running "New Look" GMs, which are now
>very much old look ... thirty to forty year old buses in quite
>respectable condition.  And Lancaster is also an exception ... though
>they're off the streets now, RRTA re-engined all of their 1971 Twin's.
>But, we both know these are exceptions.  The real world is the big
>cities (those places with 1 to 10 million population).
>


Harrisburg new looks (TDH 4523A's) date to about 1975.  About the same time 
that a certain eastern Pennsylvania aerospace company was assemblying US 
Standard light rail vehicles for Boston and San Francisco.

The RRTA buses that were re-engined were Flxible's from late 1970s.

Some of the Harrisburg 'new looks' were resold for further use in State 
College about five years ago.  Maybe Derrick can check to see if any are 
still being used next time he goes for ice cream.

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