[PRCo] Re: Duquesne Light Sold

[Boris Cefer]

What did you expect from journalists?!!!

B

----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward H. Lybarger" <trams at adelphia.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 6:37 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Duquesne Light Sold


> Today's papers chronicled the announcement of the sale of Duquesne Light
> Company to an Australian firm (I should have bought some stock last week
for
> a fast 20% gain...but I didn't!), and I note that the journalists are just
> as accurate as ever...
> In a P-G column "Duquesne Light Has Changed Hands Before" the writer says
> "By 1924, Duquesne Light served 205,000 customers -- the most in any city
> outside of New York and Chicago.  Two years later, its parent company, the
> Philadelphia Company, was acquired by a larger holding company, Standard
Gas
> and Electric." [That acquisition occurred in 1924, not 1926.]  "Duquesne
> Light separated itself from its parent companies in 1935, after Congress
> passed a law mandating that holding companies could only own one utility
> system.  As an independent company, Duquesne Light grew quickly as
> Pittsburgh's heavy industry demanded increasing amounts of electricity.
In
> 1947, the company spent $300 million to double its generating ability."
[Not
> only did the writer get the year of independence wrong -- it was only
after
> 1950 when Pittsburgh Railways was spun off that Philadelphia Company was
> collapsed into Duquesne Light, Equitable Gas having been sold in 1949 --
she
> thoroughly misunderstood the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935
> and had no notion of how long it took before anything was separated under
> same.]
>
> Some things never change.
>
> In case I don't respond to messages for the next two weeks, it's because
> Janis and I are going on a vacation without phones and computers.  Back
the
> 20th.
>
> Ed
>
>
>
>