[PRCo] Re: Interesting item on eBay-CompuServe web site item#2194709451: PCC Trolley Streetcar Pittsburgh .P717

[Fred Schneider]

I don't think it was untruthful.  It was the prevalent attitude then.  And you
cannot judge history in todays terms, you must judge it in view of events then.
Buses were considered modern in 1967 in contrast to a trolley that had not be
painted or replaced in 20 years.  Remember too that the 1700s represented about
40% of the fleet in the middle 1960s and they were miserable on a stinking hot
summer day.  An air-conditioned bus had a whole lot to offer.

Remember too that the railways company had been living off the depreciation
fund.  They simply didn't have the money in the 1950s to buy new cars.  Even the
buses didn't come complete ... fare boxes and a lot of other minor hardware was
transferred from older vehicles in an attempt to save money.

Riders in the last years?  Remember the 1954 strike wiped out any need for the
remaining yellow cars ... they probably had 100 to 150 in service in the rush
hours until that strike.  They lost about 20 percent of their passengers in that
strike.  There was at least one other protracted strike, I think about 1957.  By
the middle 1960s their  car fleet was down to something around 450 cars, and of
that about 75 were in dead storage in Rankin and each barn had its rows of idle
cars.  This implies that they had lost about 70 percent of their rail business
since the early 1950s.  Obviously, the abandonment of routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9,
12, 20, 23, 34, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 34, 59, 62, 63, 81 C, D, W1, W2, W5 and W
caused some of the loses.  The shuttles were probably insignificant.  And they
are not even in my guesstimate for the 70% car loss because they were all gone
the year before the strike.  The Millvale and Ingram-based conversions were all
relatively weak routes with probably the exception of the Spring Hill, Spring
Grove, and Troy Hill lines.  The rest had a lot of unproductive miles.
Therefore, a big chunk of the reduced mileage was simply the result of general
declines in the industry and responses to the perpetual labor disputes.

Ken & Tracie wrote: