[PRCo] Re: Why was the Drake Loop Built?

[Fred Schneider]

Or you might have gone another mile (+/-} and looped around or wyed  
on the substation on company property at Thompsonville.

Zone fares.  Who cares.   The numbers are still uniform counts ...  
more uniform than passengers....either you count people or you count  
nickels.    They dropped from record highs to post-depression lows in  
six years.   PRC still lost 50 percent of the interurban business in  
six years.   You cannot stay in business with that kind of  
erosion.    That would be enough to make me, if I were the company  
brass, bail out.

Notice that once they got rid of the interurbans that the base  
business was only 5 to 6 million fares (or riders) a year north of  
Library and Drake.    That means that the three routes in Washington,  
Donora, 19 miles of the Washington line (south of Drake)  and 25  
miles of the Charleroi line (south of Simmons) were only generating 9  
to 10 million zone fares (or riders) in 1952.  That's roughly 9  
million zone fares on 57 miles of rail ... or something on the order  
of magnitude of 200 one-way zone fares per mile of track per day.    
And they were running 30 minute headways on the interurbans and  
probably 15 to 30 on the city lines.  Hardly worth getting out of bed  
for in the morning!    Of course Mon Valley Transit Authority and  
GG&C Bus Company would be happy to have that kind of business  
today!     They could actually live on it.

Something more than decking too.   How about welding in new steel to  
replace that which rusts away?    I'm sure if it wasn't budgeted,  
someone thought about it.     Someone also might have thought about  
the risk of hitting some idiot kid walking on the bridge at night in  
suburbia and having a lawyer explain to them that they owned an  
attractive nuisance.    How do you explain in a court room why you  
didn't fence it and why you didn't put a 24 hour guard on each end of  
it?   (Maybe the resident cynic is applying 2007 logic to 1953 in  
error.  I guess we really had not dumbed the population down quite  
that far in 1953.)

fws


On Dec 14, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> I think, Fred, that those ridership numbers are zone fares rather than
> actual passenger counts.  You may want to analyze the numbers  
> contrasted
> against the service...how many per day and how many per trip...that  
> should
> tell us which.  PRCo records do not.
>
> My mother bought a car in September 1949...she had places to drag  
> me that
> weren't served by the trolley.  But I went to elementary school,  
> starting in
> the fall of 1951, with lots of kids who lived in one-car families.
>
> In addition to avoiding future maintenance on Drake Viaduct, which was
> budgeted for re-decking in 1961 at an estimated cost of $19,000  
> (paint was
> not mentioned), there was no good place for a turnaround loop  
> anywhere near
> County Line.  You might have squeezed one in at Paris Lake but the  
> creek was
> awfully close and the space was small.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of  
> Fred
> Schneider
> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:47 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Why was the Drake Loop Built?
>
>
> In addition to being a picture of a switch, this picture is very
> interesting because it shows the Drake loop being built.   Pittsburgh
> Railways' intent was apparently to shorten the interurbans and get
> them out of Washington County where accident law suits always favored
> the plaintiff and never the railways company.   County Line Siding
> was roughly 10,000 feet south of Drake Loop.   The Loop was actually
> south of Drake Wye which was situated just south of Walther stop.
> At the time the rails were torn up in 1953 there were already a lot
> of new homes between Drake and Cremona Siding and Paris Lake stops.
> It was already substantially developed.
>
> One look at the interurban revenue chart between 1945 and 1952 would
> have made you want to shorten it too.   At the end of the war the
> Railways Company was hauling more than 30 million passengers on the
> two interurban lines plus the Donora shuttle and the three Washington
> city routes.   By 1949 that had dropped to about 21 million.  In 1950
> it was about 19 million.   In 1952 it was down to 15 million.
> Remember guys ... this was small town and suburban America.   By
> 1948-49 the auto manufacturers caught up to the pent up demand for
> cars after World War II and by 1949 they were advertising to women to
> buy a second car for the family so that they didn't have to suffer
> with the bus or trolley.     People like Mrs. Samuel Lybarger got the
> message ... ultimately there was a second car in their garage.   Ed
> can tell us if his mom waited until after the trolley line was torn
> up in 1953 or if she bought it before.
>
> So it was obvious that the railway had good reason to shorten the
> interurbans to some point but where?  The picture is worth a thousand
> words.   The Drake viaduct was a 470 foot long maintenance nightmare
> that stood 44 to 45 feet above the valley floor at McLaughlings Run
> in Upper St. Clair Township.   Had it remained, the Port Authority
> would have no doubt been forced to replace it just as they did the
> three other viaducts along Saw Mill Run.   So much for not running
> the remaining 2 miles down to the Allegheny - Washington county line.
>
> I think any manager who looked at what was happening would have done
> the same thing.
>
>
>
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/03-Track%20Drake%
> 20Loop%20Construct%201953xxxx%2001.jpg
>
>
>
>