[PRCo] Re: Fares in Pittsburgh

[mtoytrain at bellsouth.net]

Fred

Fred, fantastic, this will be addred to my  PRC files, learned more than I had expectedm  
Any other comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Jerry M
> 
> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> Date: 2005/09/20 Tue AM 11:59:56 EDT
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Fares in Pittsburgh
> 
> In response to Jerry:
> 
> Good question and I'm only going to start an answer that I'm sure can  
> unravel over days because of different memories of different periods  
> of time.
> 
> Like many operators in many large cities, Pittsburgh Railways didn't  
> want to give away the farm.   Therefore you could not get on a car in  
> Washington, Pa. and ride all the way to Sewickley on a single fare.
> 
> The city routes were divided into sectors.... probably north, west,  
> south and east.   You could get on a car in the west end and pay a  
> fare, obtain a free transfer and ride on that transfer to any point  
> in the west end or any point in the downtown zone.  If I remember  
> correctly, the downtown zone was bounded by Carson St. on the south,  
> North Avenue on the north, and Damf-I-Remember Street on the east.    
> If, however, you wanted to go beyond the downtown zone, PRC sold  
> Special transfers and Round-Trip Special Transfers, which allowed  
> rides from one city sector to the full extent of another city  
> sector.   A "Special" for example, would allow a ride from East  
> Liberty to Carnegie.  To give relative expense, I think when the base  
> fare was 17 cents, the one-way special was 25 cents.
> 
> There may have been extra zones to Glassport, McKeesport, Sewickley  
> etc. but I cannot remember.  I never could remember those details.   
> And there were times when motormen would be nice to railfans and  
> simply would forget the extras.
> 
> The interurban fares were by zones.   The Zone numbers were painted  
> on Washington Division waiting sheds (Meadow Lands was 12, Cheesman  
> was 8, Cremona was in zone 4 and of, of course, downtown Pittsburgh  
> was in zone 1.  (Charleroi sheds were not identified in any picture I  
> have.)   I bought two books of zone tickets in 1953 and they were  
> sufficient for a round trip on both divisions ... there might have  
> been 40 tickets in a book.  And I think I might have paid $2.40 per  
> book.  (I've sure EHL has something to correct my memory.)   After  
> 1952 you could pay between Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon with zone  
> fares, zone tickets, tokens (checks in Pittsburgh parlance), local  
> fares.   The zone fares were registered on Ohmer receipt printers ...  
> the motorman set the printer for the zone in which you boarded and  
> for the zone where you stated you wanted off, you paid the fare and  
> took the receipt.  When you got off, you handed in the receipt to  
> prove you paid the fare.   At the end of his day, he turned in a  
> register tape and his bag of money.   The company counted it.   One  
> motorman explained that they always forgot to register a few fares  
> each day so that they would always wind up with more money than the  
> tape showed and never be questioned about shortages.
> 
> Washington Division local lines had their own fare structure and even  
> their own tokens.
> 
> There was a period in the 1950s when Pittsburgh Railways had a weekly  
> permit cards to encourage riding ... I think it might have been done  
> after the 1954 strike.  If you paid for the permit, the fare was  
> reduced on each trip.
> 
> The Railways had a Sunday Pass for many years.  I rode on them as  
> early as 1953.   My father, who was always noted for baiting his kids  
> to see what they were doing, left a 1930 Sunday Pass in a sex manual  
> for me to find.   I found it.  Never told him.  He never told me  
> either.    PAT went to a weekend pass.  The whole object was to  
> stimulate riding when people might otherwise not ride ... same scheme  
> as  building amusement parks.
> 
> That ought to be enough to start things moving.
> 
> fws
> 
>