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

[Edward H. Lybarger]

I'm looking at pictures of car 1559, which was painted up for the 26th Allegheny County Fair.  One of the views shows it behind car 1496, which advertises 1963 Plymouths.  From that, we could deduce that the fair started in 1938.  But Library Loop was built for the purpose in 1935.  Was there no fair for a couple years during the war?

All the Web sites I find merely say it started in the 30s.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of
hrbran99 at adelphia.net
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 10:45 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Cc: Mark McGuire
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Why was the Drake Loop Built?


One of the main reasons PRCo wanted out of Washington County was the high (and getting higher by the year) taxation rate applied to PRCo property and operations. Also, competition from unregulated private bus operations was draining a lot of revenue in those 'traffic free' days. The bus could make it from Washington County to Pittsburgh in less time than the trolley took. The bus just rolled along the auto free/traffic signal free roads of that day at a higher average speed than the streetcar. The PRCo system was plagued with miles of single-track operation which caused delays. Also just the general way a streetcar riding on rails had to be operated in order to be safe ate up precious minutes that the bus operations did not (or would not) have to put up with. Had there been as many registered automobiles then, as now, the story would be quite different, I am sure. Just think what two double-track light rail lines (Washington to Pgh and Charleroi to Pgh) could do for traffic !
 congestion today!

About West Library Loop. For years that loop was used to turn Fairground cars. I would like to know what year the County Fair started at South Park and what year the W. Library Loop was constructed.

Also, when I operated those lines in the 70's/80's most passengers were off the car by the time it arrived at West Library. Library Loop (Simmons) had a very small parking area in those days. Had PATransit built a first-class transit center at Library (Simmons) with plenty of paved/lighted/secure parking and a decent waiting area with plenty of passenger ammenities I feel sure that the ridership on route 35 would have been substantialy higher. The mindset of the early/mid 70s was that "Skybus" was the future and the Library line would be discontinued and replaced with shuttle buses feeding into Skybus. Again, my main complaint about government funded public transit in the USA.........they always want to jump on whatever Rube Goldberg invention is being touted (and funded) and do not want to see 20 or 30 or more years down the proverbial road.

--
HrB

---- Mark McGuire <macmarka at netzero.net> wrote: 
>  I feel like I have asked this question before. Why was the Drake 
> Loop built when they had an operating wye in place? Couldn't they 
> just use the wye like 42 Dormont cars?