[PRCo] Re: Fares in Pittsburgh

[John Swindler]

>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Fares in Pittsburgh
>Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:59:56 -0400
>
>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.
>


Edgewood Station was end of first fare zone on rt. 64; St. Anne's School was 
end of first fare zone on 36/35; and was it King's School end of second fare 
zone on Library???????  Implication is that 87, 67, 55, 56, 68, etc, 
probably also had additional zones, but only rode them on Sunday/Holiday 
pass.  Northside was all within first fare zone.  West End???  (quit too 
soon)

On 64 inbound trips, a green fare receipt indicated that fare had been paid 
to downtown Pittsburgh.

There was a "Throat" (?????) transfer - for instance if you boarded an 
inbound 8/13/15 around Buhl Planetarium, which was in city zone, this 
transfer would be good on outbound east end car to end of first fare zone.  
I don't recall any extra charge.

The Sunday/Holiday pass was great.  -  John


>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
>