[PRCo] Re: West Penn 706 Question

[Harold Geissenheimer]

Greetings to all and to Fred

In that era of stability it was not necessary to rewrite the
vehicle assignments every day.  Even at Community
Transit operating out of Tarentum the same bus was
assigned to the same runs.  Many times the same
driver bid the same run for years.  Vehicles could be
switched some times to please a driver or a particular
heavy trip.

At Community, the Queens Nassau buses #126 and up
were assigned in order to runs on what is now PAT line
1/3A.  This never changed for3 years and was carried
over to PAT.  Same for buses on #77A and 5A/B.

Same for BidgevilleCommunity Transit buses..  Its
called vehicle utilization planning.  We could do this because
we could park the buses the night before.

Big systems park the vehicles as they come in.  PAT
even had trouble in keeping 30' or 35' buses off Pgh runs
requiring 40' buses..  West Penn was small enuf to
do it right. 

Some big bus lines do put out the same bus the same way
every day by parking them in individual slots.  That way
the same bus for the same driver or pairs of drivers.
I prefer that.

The question about rest rooms is interesting.  NJ Transit
cant even put the toilet car in the same place. every day.
Important to note, the LRT SBahn that runs out from
the Karlsuhe CBD over commuter DB tracks is now
receiving LRV's with toilets.  These run on long interurban
lines for 60 to 90 minutes.  Another example of better
rail in Europe.

The  LVT in Allentown had toilets.

A question...did the early PRC interurbans have toilets?

Harold Geissenheimer

Fredbruhn at aol.com wrote:

>       
>West Penn 706 was the regularly scheduled car on the Fairchance line.  Almost 
>all of the photos I have show this car, or an 831 series holding down the 
>schedule.
>Car 706 and its sister 705 are shown to have 58 seats after being rebuilt in 
>the 1930's  
>while the balance of 707-739 show 54 seats.  
>
>My question is, can anyone tell me why 706 was used mostly (if not entirely) 
>on the Fairchance line, and where did the extra space come from for the 4 
>additional seats.
>Would eliminating the restroom provide that much space?
>
>If 706 lacked lavatory facilities and the Fairchance line was the shortest 
>served by the 700 series, maybe management felt patrons could hold their needs 
>for the length of the trip.  
>
>Thanks for any help, factual or otherwise.
>
>Fred Bruhn
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