[PRCo] Re: West Penn Railways Fare Zones

[Fred Schneider]

I think this underscores the fact that most street railway passengers  
rode for short distances.   While there was a connection between  
Pittsburgh Railways and West Penn Railways in Aspinwall, let us not  
forget there was a much faster way to Pittsburgh and it was called  
the train.   There probably wasn't a whole lot of justification for  
running cars through to Pittsburgh.   This was a very early change.    
The through service opened in 1908 and I cannot find any evidence  
that it resumed after the 1915 strike of Allegheny Valley Street  
Railway employees was concluded.  Something here worth knowing....   
The change in 1915 may have related to auto competition, the  
availability of trains, and the desire not to have defferent unions  
or union/non union crews together.   What do you know Ed?
Most of us recall that the Pennsy commuter trains in the Allegheny  
Valley did not go farther down the river than Aspinwall, and instead  
went up the Brilliant Branch to East Liberty and then into downtown  
Pittsburgh.  This was not always the case.  In fact almost every inch  
of mainline railroad track in the United States once had scheduled  
passenger trains on it except some very late construction projects  
(the 1903 bypass on the Pennsy in this area and perhaps the Keddie  -  
Bieber line in California).  The Pennsy still carded two trains from  
Federal Street Station on the North Side to Aspinwall in the 1930  
Official Guide, and one of them went all the way to Kiskiminitas  
Junction.  Earlier on I think there were also Federal St. to  
Blairsville and Johnstown trains.   If you were in a hurry, you  
didn't take the trolley.  If you wanted a seat, you probably didn't  
choose the trolley.   I'm going to use my own mother as an example,  
who, after she was married, worked for several more years at the  
complaint window at Kauffman's department store downtown.  They lived  
in Oakmont.  And she didn't take the 87 or 88 car to Wilkinsburg and  
change to the 78.  Not on your life.  The Pennsy to Oakmont was a  
heck of a lot faster.

So it probably wasn't all that much of a loss that the through cars  
were taken off ... except to the railfans looking backwards.    By  
the 1930s it was a moot point anyway.  West Penn bought 12 curved  
side cars for the Valley Route in 1929 and retained four older ones  
(250, 251, ? and ?)  and just a few years later they cut the  
schedules in half, meaning they probably never needed more than 6 or  
7 cars on a good day.

I personally liked the way the railway suckered each of  the  
townships and boroughs in the valley into buying their track for $1  
each in 1937 so that the railway could escape the cost of pulling it  
out of the paving.  AVSR only lifted the unpaved track ...  the easy  
stuff to get at and sell.   The press had so convinced the public  
that the highway was a death trap that the politicians would have  
given West Penn anything to get rid of them!   The newspapers called  
the old route 28 the "Death Highway."   Had something to do with  
visually challenged motorists plowing into trolleys.  You want some  
good reading ... look into the PUC abandonment docket in Harrisburg.

fws

>
Jim Holland wrote:


> At one time the WP cars ran through to Pgh. with crews from both  
> companies
> on the car.       That didn't last long and psgrs. had to transfer in
> Aspinwall.
> .