[PRCo] Re: PRCo - "through?" lines__&__77__Line

[Jim Holland]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo - "through?" lines
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 10:13:02 -0500
From: John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org

>Fred W. Schneider III commented:

>When the Penn Lincoln Parkway opened (now simply the Parkway East in local 
>lingo), PRC operated through buses over it.  There was a Pittsburgh - 
>Wilkinsburg via Parkway bus, which I rode and then transferred to an 87 
>Ardmore car on Ardmore Blvd to get to East Pittsburgh ... that transfer 
>saved me a half-hour.

I remember a PRC route "J", Edgewood-Swissvale via Parkway.  Started 
somewhere in vicinity Jane St. loop, followed outbound 64 carline to 
Swissvale RR station, then wandered over to Penn Lincoln Parkway at
Braddock 
Ave. interchange.


>> mrb190 wrote:

>> Now that I see PAT, in recent years, has created routes which go all the 
>> way from Bellevue to Highland Park, cutting through downtown Pittsburgh, it 
>> made me recall reading that the railways once had such routes....

>> Pittsburgh Railways had some one major crosstown line, a combination of the 
>> old 54 Carrick - Oakland and the 77 Oakland-Bloomfield-North Side. The 
>> flying fraction (77/54) ran into the early 1960s ... a street paving 
>> project split it and 54 (probably still called 77/54) later only ran to 
>> Seneca and Gist in Oakland.
>


Correction: Brady St. Bridge was reason for splitting route 77/54 in early 
1960s.  Streetcar route 77/54 then ran northside-Bloomfield-Oakland to 
Forbes-Seneca-Gist (two single track connections between Forbes and
Fifth).  
Small buses put on portion of route Oakland-Brady St. to southside.  Don't 
recall if buses continued out S. 18th St. to Brentwood Loop.

Originally route 77 was part of an inner loop belt line from dawntawn.  (or 
something like that in Pittsburgese)  Penn-Bloomfield-Fifth.  Had different 
car number for clockwise direction.  This was called the Bloomfield loop.

There was also an outer loop belt line.  Fifth-Shady-East Liberty-Penn.  
Again, different car numbers for clockwise and counter-clockwise.
It was referred to as the Fifth-Shady-Penn loop.  Maybe I should not have 
used term "belt" to describe.  Need to check if PRC used this term.


>> 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)?

> No, there was a 62nd St. - East Liberty line.  It simply connected with
> the 94 and 95 lines at 62nd St, ran farther east on Butler Street, then
> up into East Liberty.  I think it used Negley to Penn, than made a loop
> in the northeastern part of East Liberty on Larimer and Paulson Sts.
> It really could not be called a crosstown line in the definition of
> something that ran completely across a major part of the city.


There were three PRC car lines that operated out Penn-Butler route to 62nd 
St. (four if you include route93): 94 which continued to Aspinwall (may
have 
only gone as far as Sharpsburg originally), 95 which short-turned at 62nd 
St. and 96 which continued to East Liberty via Morningside.  This is 
probably a legacy of the early independent companies.  Anyway, a 
rationalization around 1918 eliminated the 62nd St. via Penn/Butler to 
downtown portion, thus producing the route 96 that we remember.

For the trivia fans, this was also the changes that extended the 86 East 
Liberty Express from its turnback on Penn Ave. in the center of East
Liberty 
to the Larimar Loop.

John

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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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