[PRCo] Re: Fares Please

[Fred Schneider]

The Railways Company didn't care about anything other than money and  
the fare box took care of that.   The annual reports to the state  
required a count of how many passengers boarded the cars, hence the  
fare register was used to count passengers.

Fare registers were there to make sure the conductors were honest.   
After the fare boxes were installed, such a redundant devise was  
there usually because governments wanted information.   When UMTA  
started paying the bills in the 1970s, they too demanded passenger  
count data nationwide.

There was a charming case that Ed Lybarger found in the state DIA  
reports where West Penn Railways had refused to fill in the passenger  
counts, claiming that they knew all about how many dollars they had  
but knew nothing about how many people rode.   West Penn's letter to  
the DIA explained that they had zone fares, single ride tickets,  
clergy fares, round trip tickets, etc., etc., and they knew how many  
dollars they received but they hadn't clue how many passengers  
rode.   They received a very bureaucratic letter in return saying, in  
essence, "The state doesn't care about your excuses, we need to know  
how many riders you had.   You will fill in the number."   West Penn  
filled in the number and said it was concocted.   At least for the  
remaining years the concocted numbers looked about the same.   They  
had made an attempt and come up with a valid number.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania had a total of about 11 million riders in  
their best year.  That probably placed them around eighth or ninth  
largest in the state in spite of having the 6th largest fleet and 6th  
largest mileage.  Were their numbers also concocted?   Maybe but if  
you alter them in any way, they only get worse.   It shows something  
very interesting.   At 11 million riders a year, the average fare was  
only 6 cents and the first zone was 5 cents and the maximum zone fare  
was 45 cents from Lancaster to Coatesville.  You cannot increase the  
number of riders without lower the number of zone fares and it is  
already at a rock bottom level.   It shows that most people only rode  
from the farm to the nearest general store to buy work pants, a bolt  
of cloth or a bag of sugar and then went home again.   Going all the  
way into Lancaster was something reserved for Christmas or a Sunday  
School Picnic at Rocky Springs Park in July.   We are accustomed to  
taking long trips ... to 15,000 miles a year in our cars.  Americans  
of 1910 or 1915 lived out their entire lives seldom going more than  
10 miles from home.   The fare data from your local trolley company  
proves that.

f3


On Sep 1, 2007, at 10:19 PM, Jim Holland wrote:

>  Good Morning!
> http://tinyurl.com/2ykzmf[1]  --
> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh
> -railways/03%20Fare%20Register%20Manual%2019830101%20JBHolland.jpg 
> [2]  --
> Manual Fare register mounted to the left side of the destination  
> sign with
> rope attached in one of the holes on the left.     Motorman would  
> manually
> ring up each cash fare in accordance with PRCo rules.     The  
> bottom number
> is cumulative - upper number reflects a portion of a trip.     When  
> the
> motorman arrived at the turning point downtown, he would turn the  
> knob on
> theleft which would reset the upper number to Zero and change  IN   
> to  OUT
> (motorman first recorded the number of fares as well as the number of
> transfers collected on his trip card.)     I also have the electric  
> register
> which was operated by a dash toggle and was mounted near the  
> ceiling behind
> the front doors in 1200s  --  1100s also had same  (or some of the  
> fleet
> did)  but these apparently changed to manual at some point for some  
> reason
> --  12s kept the electrical registers to the end.
> .
> .
> .
> Jim__Holland
>
>
> --- Links ---
>    1 http://tinyurl.com/2ykzmf
>    2 http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/03%20Fare% 
> 20Register%20Manual%2019830101%20JBHolland.jpg
>