[PRCo] Re: Rankin Car House

[Fred Schneider]

My good friend of 32 years:

I originally wrote in the bit about riding on pass for PRC employees and then
deleted it, questioning in my own mind what share of operators were still using
it in the late 1930s.  I really have no feel for what share of PRC drivers and
motormen used trolleys to get to work.

Yes, I lived in the suburbs and everybody I knew lived in small towns (Marietta,
Ohio) or Penn Township (now Penn Hills).  My aunt had a 37 Chevrolet.  Dad had a
39 Chevrolet.  Uncle Fred had a 41 Plymounth.  Grandpa Rebele had a late 30s
Graham-Paige, and he lived just off Perrysville Avenue in the 3400 block.  My
dad's father did not have a car; he had owned an air-cooled Franklin back when
driver's licenses were not needed.  After he used it to knock the porch off a
house in Marietta and then spent weeks worth of evenings building the family a
new porch, then he decided automobiles were not for him.  He managed to get away
without it until his death in 1962.  But almost everyone around me in the early
1940s had automobiles, although many were not able to use them.  I think my
Uncle Emil didn't have a car and he may have been my only great aunt or great
uncle who didn't.  My memory goes back to the middle 1940s.  Automobile
ownership probably wasn't a whole lot different in the war ... actually
registered vehicles dropped during the war, and then rose slightly after it as
some cars were pulled off blocks and relicensed.  That is my memory.

What follows is not brag ... it is simply stated to show my perspective.  I
recognize too that my mother's father was an electrical contractor who did
commercial buildings.  Depending on how fast the customers paid, he did have
money ... enough money that he vacationed every summer in the early 1930s in
Virginia Beach and got there in his automobile.  My father was a test engineer
for Gulf Oil, then an design engineer for two electrical suppliers in the
Pittsburgh area, then he went with Armstrong as an engineer in the Pittsburgh
plant and later the chief engineer in one of the Lancaster plants.  He wasn't
exactly poverty stricken.  His sister was a school teacher (back in the days
when you were told to quit when you got married or pregnant).  Her husband was a
public high school teacher who climbed the ladder to Chairman of the Industrial
Arts Department, State University of New York - Oswego.  They were not hurting
either.   In our neighborhood in Pittsburgh was a later Gulf Oil vice president,
a white hat from Homestead, a well healed real estate salesman, several
doctors.  My surroundings were clearly not median income ... morely likely top
10 percent of the heap.

Now if I were to ask Jim Henwood, he would tell me that his family lived in
North Philadelphia and no one had a car because no one needed a car.  Certainly
that was paralleled in Pittsburgh to a large degree.  I have motor vehicle
registration data for the state (if I can find it in this dump), but I have
nothing by county.  To get that I would have to go to the state library and get
those old paper books that police used to identify the owner of a car from the
license plate number.



John Swindler wrote:

> Fred, you've been living in the suburbs for too long. (:>)
>
> Why use an automobile when the company will provide free transportation?
>
> It was a time of frequent service, and the barns tended to be located where
> there was much service.  Craft, for instance, had one vehicle commutes from
> E. Liberty, Wilkinsburg, Swissvale, Squirrel Hill, etc.  Likewise, just
> about any home on a car line in the South Hills would be a one vehicle ride
> to Tunnel.  And the availability of owl service was the norm.  Even into the
> 60s, route 88 Frankstown had half-hourly owl service.
>
> In summers of 1968 and 1969, I had a two vehicle commute to work in Chicago.
>   Even a 4am or 5am start was not a problem due to existance of half-hourly
> owl service on most routes.  Likewise a pm run that would pull in around
> midnight did not create any problem commuting back to where I stayed.
>
> In 50s and 60s my father used a 64 car, then either 60 or 68 to commute to
> Homestead Works.  In 70s, he would use PAT for day shift, but usually drove
> his car for night shift and 4-12 shift.  The reason:  reduction in transit
> service in late evenings.
>
> It was a different world then.  Today I would not be surprised if most bus
> drivers drive their cars to work.
>
> John
>
> >From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> >Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >Subject: [PRCo] Rankin Car House
> >Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:51:30 -0500
> >
> >Follow up on previous e-mails:
> >
> >Rankin Bridge collapsed June 26, 1937 and was reopened November 25,
> >1937.  A sidewalk opened in August.
> >
> >On July 10, 1937 Rankin Car House closed as an operating facility.
> >Routes 55, 60 and 61 were moved to Homewood.  Route 59 went to
> >Glenwood.  Routes 67 and 68 went Craft.  The route cards for each route
> >began with, "Because of the collapse of the Rankin Bridge, ....."
> >
> >Unfortunately, we have no information on the factors PRC used in their
> >decision to move the routes out of Rankin in 1937, or for the failure to
> >return those routes to Rankin later in the same year.  Perhaps the
> >company had been wanting to close it for sometime and the collapse
> >simply made shifting of jobs easier.  Apparently the other barns now had
> >sufficient capacity for all the routes, and they continued to have
> >adequate capacity throughout World War II.
> >
> >Thirty years earlier most operators would have lived in the neighborhood
> >where they worked ... generally within walking distance.  Perhaps mostly
> >within one-half mile.  If you moved men to another division, you might
> >have had to move them to a new home.  West Penn Railways did that when
> >the Iron Bridge Carbarn was closed; the company moved the men to new
> >houses at Greensburg or Connellsville.  But this was 1937 and most
> >families in the state had an automobile (ownership was lower in urban
> >areas like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia).  Moving men may have been more
> >of an annoyance than major problem.  My recollection is that most
> >carbarns in Pittsburgh did not have an abundance of parking for
> >employees.  This may not have been a problem at Homewood because there
> >would have been five blocks or more of street spaces beside the company
> >facility.  Glenwood may have had some space in the 1950s but I don't
> >know about 1930s.   Space was probably at a premium around Craft Avenue
> >... certainly the presence of Magee Woman's Hospital next door would
> >have put a premium on street space.   I would love to see what the rest
> >of you are thinking.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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