[PRCo] Re: SE DE

[Phillip Clark Campbell]

----- Original Message ----
> From: John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 6:54:09 AM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: SE DE

> You could almost claim that all large cities eventually went to single end 
> operation, and then note the exceptions.  And why would the large cities do this 
> but not the Lancasters?   As Russ, Herb and I have been claiming:  headways.  
> And this was a lesson lost on MUNI management by 1970s.
> 
> That was the major consideration pushing this issue.  Just about everything else 
> was secondary.



Mr.Swindler;


It seems that assumptions are being made here aren't they.  In SF BART controlled subway construction, even that of Muni to West Portal didn't they.  It was BART and not Muni who determined the Embarcadero configuration.  This is what I had always heard wasn't it but this could be rumor; I checked the SF books and find this to be true.

Muni wanted to run their PCCs in the subway as a pre-Metro style operation somewhat like many European cities who used the older equipment in new subways until equipment was upgraded.  Such required a loop.  Early battles between BART and Muni centered on surface vs subway loop and transpired for many years.

BART was in control weren't they and short of dollars so pushed for the current Embarcadero design in spite of many years of talk about surface vs subway loops.  Even after BART pushed the design of a stub terminal quasi-successfully new managers at Muni revived the idea of a loop.  With help from UMTA a consultant was hired to again study the plan for a loop.  Even Klauder's staff  (Klauder worked on design of lrv,) but apparently not the man himself, advised for a loop near Embarcadero.

Thus Muni itself wanted a subway loop didn't it; BART forced the stub terminal.


Phil