[PRCo] Re: West Penn Railways Fare Zones

[John Swindler]

>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] West Penn Railways Fare Zones
>Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 18:07:44 -0400
>
>My wife thinks Ed Lybarger is away (she and his wife Janis are closer
>than Ed and I).  Some point he will catch up to this and no doubt add
>his comments.
>


Perhaps a tour down the Blue Ridge Parkway this week??


Concerning local fares, there was a three cent local fare in Wilkinsburg 
that resulted in one of the most significient - if not most significant - 
court cases involving PRC, PUC  and street railways within Penna.  Made it 
to state Supreme (or was it Superior??) Court twice.

Fred - yes, you are correct on rt. 68.  Going outbound, rt. 68 cars entered 
WP trackage at the Duquesne RR station.  (there's an extremely vague 
recollection of some unused WP trackage being pointed out to me at the train 
station on car 1000 fantrip in 1958 (?))  After crossing into McKeesport (I 
want to call it the Riverton Bridge (?)), West Penn made an immediate right 
turn to continue into McKeesport near the river - believe WP used a very 
narrow Jerome St. which no longer exists.  (Ed has some pictures)  PRC used 
Fifth Avenue, which was also used by PRC Glassport-Wilmerding cars, and to 
provide access to Mckeesport car house.

John

>West Penn also used fare zones on Division B (Coke Region) in much
>the same manner that Pittsburgh Railways did on Washington and
>Charleroi but their zones were not as arbitrary.   West Penn zones
>often overlapped each other so that a ride from zone A to just
>slightly into zone B really was only a one zone ride.   Ed has a lot
>of information on them manipulating fare zones in order to get more
>money without actually increasing fares.   Therefore the zone charts
>in 1920 may not be identical to those in 1930 or 1940 or 1952.
>During the summer months, i.e. the park season, West Penn was also
>know to abolish certain zones to increase attendance at company-owned
>amusement parks.  In this instance I'm talking about fare zones
>between Uniontown and Shady Grove Park.
>
>I have no idea what West Penn did in the way of minimum fares ...
>seems to me it was one zone and not a minimum of two.
>
>I've never seen a zone chart outside of the Coke Region and I would
>be curious to know whether or not West Penn charged the same fare as
>Pittsburgh Railways when they both ran cars over West Penn tracks
>between McKeesport and Duquesne.   I have a hunch that whatever West
>Penn charged in McKeesport might well have been influenced by
>Pittsburgh Railways, but that was on the fare chart with Allegheny
>Valley and I don't have one.
>
>