[PRCo] Re: impact of TV

[Edward H. Lybarger]

Fred's and my point is not that TV didn't kill transit.  It's that West Penn
decided to get out of the trolley business before TV was a factor, and that
TV should not be cited as a (or THE) reason.  Obviously, people in the
northern end of the service area could view channel 3 and probably stayed
home to watch it.  But my friend from Uniontown, whose family had a TV
early, says that reception was so bad you could hardly tell what was going
on.  So how big was the novelty factor in encouraging people to watch snow?

We also wouldn't quarrel with the argument that TV may have advanced the
date of the abandonment petition by a short time...maybe a few months.  But
that was after the basic decision had been made.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of
Harold Geissenheimer
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 7:02 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] impact of TV



Fred

It does not matter when West Penn first mentioned TV

The fact remains that TV helped kill transit.  I watched this at
Montour Motor Coiach 1950-51 and at Harmony l951-60
and at Citizens Transit-Oil City l950-53. Thats was the end of
evening riding,

Also the 5 day week killed Saturday and shopping centers killed
downtown.  Citizen's purchased 5 new diesel buses in l949 and
was out of business in 5 years.

Harold Geissenheimer