[PRCo] Re: West Penn Railways Fare Zones

[Edward H. Lybarger]

One thing I neglected to add in the last message...the government mandated
that railways reduce the number of stops during the Second War, to save
electricity and thus coal, which was in shortage.  This was accomplished by
both elimination and consolidation.  The process was repeated again on a
lesser scope during the Depression as traffic flagged.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 6:08 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] West Penn Railways Fare Zones


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.

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.