[PRCo] Re: Crew scheduling/route interlining/through Routes

[Jim Holland]

Good Morning!!

> Fred W. Schneider III wrote:

> 1.  Cars assigned to Charleroi and Tylerdale (Washington) car houses
> were assigned to x + 1/2 round trips per day in order to have each car
> overnight two to three days a week at Tunnel for maintenance.

> 2.  Trainmen on the interurbans were not necessarily assigned only to
> cars from their barn but they were assigned in some manner that would
> get them back home at the end of a shift.  Therefore, as an example,
> cars pulling out of Charleroi in the morning and those pulling in at
> night would have a crew based in Charleroi running the car.  However, it
> order to make everything come out even, Art remembered that men did swap
> cars at sidings ... this probably happened on early middle afternoon
> trips.

	PRCo was quite creative with scheduling of crews!   And the reason is
that it was a profit based business that could not run to Uncle when
money was needed.(:->)

	Fascinating information, Fred  --  Thank You for taking the time to get
and post it!

> 3.  City men did not necessarily spend all day on one route.  Art
> claimed it was very common for a man (or woman) to work up to three
> routes in one day on their pick.  And there would be street reliefs for
> lunch, or car swaps on the street.  Art answered yes when I asked if the
> assignments were always from the same car house; i.e. he was agreeing
> that a man would not make a trip on 71, then on 8, then back on 71
> because that would have involved two divisions.  However, there might
> have been a block (theoretical of course) that saw a man make several
> trips on 9 and 21 and make one or two on route 8 ... whatever it took to
> get eight hours or more.

	This might be rather common today as well, although going to 3-routes a
day would be an exception.   Many drivers/operators here have split
shifts which work 2-different lines  --  from the same division.   The
odd run here makes an inbound AM trip on the 5-line, partial outbound on
the 3-line to Fillmore and then inbound on the 1-line (from mid route)
to town and back to the garage.   That is the first  *Half!*   Don't
know what is done on the second *Half!*

>> Harold Geissenheimer wrote::

>> About interlining.  PAT did this to the maximum.

	Do you know about  ({[pat]})  interlining of rail routes?   John
Bromley had asked about the 39-line specifically.

>>> Matt Brady wrote::

>>> Wasn't there a route which went from the Butler
>>> Street 62nd street loop, through town, and over to
>>> the South Side Carson Street loop (where route 50 once
>>> terminated)?
>>> Does anyone know of any others?

>>> Also, is that what a "through" route is -- a route which
>>> travels through downtown on to another destination?

	As John Swindler pointed out about the word  *trolley*  --  there are a
number of acceptable and unofficial definitions.   Same might be said
of  *through.*   Don't know how it was used in trolleycar days, but in
bus days and on the 1958 PRCo map, *through*  bus routes are in blue and
simply run from town to a neighborhood and back.   Of ten such routes,
4-routes were AM and PM rush hours only.   At this time, PRCo had
3-Express bus routes.

	Other cities, like LALA, used the  through--downtown  routing for
trolleycar lines and then bragged about the length of lines!
	Okkkkkkkkk,  through route Charleroi and Trafford  --  quite easy to
do, Yes?   And the line would be at least 50-miles long.   Charleroi
Inbound to Grant directly to outbound Liberty thru Ardmore to Trafford
and Trafford inbound along Penn to 11th to Liberty to Wood to outbound
Charleroi!

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James B. Holland

Holland  Electric  Railway  Operation.......
......"O"--Scale  St.-Petersburg Trams Company Trolleycars  AND......
............"O"--Scale  Parts  mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net

............Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM) http://www.pa-trolley.org/
......Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.nmra.org

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