[PRCo] Re: Economics of West Penn Railways

[Jim Holland]

Good Morning!

	Utterly fascinating treatise!   Your writing style matches as I was
hanging on to every word  a-l-l  the way thru!

	WHEN  did you say your  Book*S*  on  WP & PRCo  are coming out?(:->)

> "Edward H. Lybarger" wrote:

> Let me begin with some comments about a handful of the statements that have
> gone back and forth this afternoon.

> On converting the cars to one-man operation:  this was not seen by the
> company as modernization, this was a survival issue most basic.

> On recessions in Fayette County:  The only economic downturns indigenous to
> the Coke Region were those brought about by miners' strikes, the most
> notable of which occurred in 1922.

> On length of beehive coke oven batteries being equal to miles of West Penn
> track:  there's quite a bit of hyperbole here.  West Penn had 237 miles of
> track in Pennsylvania, or 1,251,360 feet (in round numbers)........
> So at 8.14 feet per beehive oven, the 38,031 ovens in the Connellsville and
> Lower Connellsville Region in May of 1914 (close to the peak) would require
> only about 309,572 lineal feet, or a mere 58.63 miles...less than one fourth
> of the total trackage.  The Coke Region mileage alone was 158, so the
> comparison simply doesn't work.  Nice try, though!

> On Clairton:  there were more than "some economies" involved here.

> On the playing out of coal mines:  It is easy to overlook the age of the
> mines.  Some examples of opening dates...Dunbar-1860, Fairchance-1860,
> Wheeler-1865,

> On the virtual exhaustion of the Pittsburgh Seam coal in Western
> Pennsylvania:  'Tain't so.  That's what's coming out of Washington and
> Greene Counties today in big numbers.

> On West Penn's parent:  Contrary to what the New Dealers and their
> successors will tell you, there were utility concerns who placed "public
> service" in their mission statement right along with earning a return on
> their investment.  Such a company was West Penn's parent, at least after
> about 1914.

> On passengers waiting by the edge of the woods being picked up by their
> neighbors with autos:  Like the TV story, this sounds great but is way
> overstated.

> On McKeesport profits:  there weren't any after about 1920, and maybe
> before.  It wasn't "the most profitable part" of the system in the 1920s and
> '30s.  As stated a paragraph down, it had the highest revenue per car mile,
> but that's a lot different from turning a profit.

> On abandonment of the New Stanton-Hunker-Tarr-Scottdale route:  I disagree
> that it was torn up because the Borough of Youngwood was audacious...it was
> torn up because patronage on the line was insufficient to justify the costs
> of rail maintenance, let alone replacement and paving

> On when West Penn would have disappeared without World War II and the
> Depression:  whenever a major paving project came up!

> Now as to why West Penn lasted and why it quit:  there are some basic facts
> that have to be understood.
> 1) The company actually wanted to be in the transportation business.
> 2) The company issued 50-year bonds in 1910.
> 3) The company last made money in 1920.
> 4) The company readily understood the OPM (Other People's Money) Principle.
> 5) The company had those Power dividends.

> The operating deficits that began in the '20s were seen as temporary, as
> something that would be corrected with time.

> But there were all those bonds to pay off!  This is an honorable company,
> one that believes in helping the public as it is supposed to do.

> Come 1948, everyone knew the party was over.  Still attuned to the concept
> of public service, the company hung on as long as it could out of the
> farebox (and with minimal maintenance).

> I guess I don't see what is so hard to understand about why West Penn a)
> lasted so long or b) quit.

> Ed

> P.S.  Don't forget to order that Warren book if you want to know anything
> about the history of the regional industry.

wxyz

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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 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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