[PRCo] Re: [PRCo]End of a Street car line?

[Fred Schneider]

Perhaps the "revitalized" operation in Chestnut Hill didn't carry  
many people but route 23 Chestnut Hill-Germantown - 11th and 12th  
Streets to South Philadelphia was always a very heavy route.  It was  
PRT / PTC / SEPTA's longest route and it probably had the greatest  
passenger turnover.   In the old days it had many load generating  
points: bus connections at Chestnut Hill to Schuylkill Valley, Auch  
Interboro, LVT; the shopping neighborhood at Germantown; Broad /  
Erie / Germantown where they crossed the Broad St. Subway;  Center  
City; Spring Garden Avenue; Center City and the Broad St. Subway;  
Center City and the Locust St. Subway; the South St. business  
neighborhood.  There were a lot of lines that crossed it and probably  
provided a lot of transfer passengers on streets such as Chelten  
Ave., Allegheny Ave., Lehigh Ave., Arch St.,  Market St., Chestnut  
St., Walnut St., South St., Morris St., Tasker St., Snyder Ave.

I am not sure why SEPTA got rid of it unless it might have been  
moving cars to Woodland to replace those that burn up in the  
fire??????   Or perhaps it was just policy????

There were a lot of strange things that SEPTA did such as getting  
federal money to rebuild route 6 and then abandoning it.  Seems to me  
that there was a lot of rebuild of route 47 and it never ran  
afterward.  I never quite understood SEPTA policy.  I think John  
understands but it might not be appropriate to ask everything he  
knows on line.

On Aug 3, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Ken & Tracie wrote:

> No problem with the correction, John. Thanks.
>
> There were people within our hobby who noted that the 23 cars were  
> "nearly
> empty" in the Germantown section, where people were very vocal about
> retaining them, though it was questioned as to how many residents  
> in that
> area took advantage of the service.
>
> Other parts of the line were always well patronized.
>
> K.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Swindler" <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 12:16 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: [PRCo]End of a Street car line?
>
>
>>
>> Hi Ken
>>
>> The route 23 cars were seldom nearly empty, even into the SEPTA  
>> era.   It
>> is/was one of the heaviest routes in Philadelphia.  So is/was 60  
>> and 56.
>>
>> Route 53 Wayne Ave. was another matter.  And 47 and 50 were not  
>> that busy
>> either.
>>
>> I'd appreciate Rich's comments as I'm just trying to remember  
>> ridership
>> statistics from the 1980s.  Today would probably be a different
>> observation.  That is the reason for use of the past tense above.
>>
>> John
>>
>