[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh one-man cars

[Bill Robb]

Toronto Civic Railway (TCR) was pre-WW1, 1911 to be exact.  That was more of a franchise dispute.  The Toronto Railway Company  (TRC) said its franchise of 1891 only required it to operate within the city limits of that date.  After the city lost its case in court, the TCR was formed as a result and built lines on Bloor West, Danforth, St. Clair , none of which were connected, and Gerrard . It wasn't really profit, so much as Sir William MacKenzie in his quest to built the Canadian Northern Railway, didn't have the cash to properly fund the TRC.  The city had to sue just to have double truck cars added to the fleet.
The Toronto Transportation Commission (1921-1954) was created in 1921,  and upon expiration of the TRC's  franchise as of August 30, 1921 and the city exercised an option to buy the system.Toronto Civic properties were turned over to the TTC.  Sorry Fred, Toronto Civic Railway never bought out the TRC. Everything was done as the Toronto Transportation Commission, a commission created by provincial legislation and intended to be free of political interference. Financial and activity statements were printed in the newspapers every quarter. There was an initial investment by the city which had to be repaid and the city only had a say in the Commission affairs if the TTC came back for more money. (The purchase  of the first 140 PCCs  in 1938 really created a storm at city hall.  Where the hell did THEY get the money??!!??) The reason the name was changed was that the mayor of the day was Tommy Church and the railway was to be called Toronto
 Civic Lines, but the press began referring to the new railway as the Tommy Church Lines  much to the mayor's embarssement.

The original TTC rebuilt lines and connected disjointed parts of the system.  I think there was some early building into virgin territory along Mt. Pleasant and Yonge north of Eglinton circa 1921, areas that were long part of the city but without streetcars (based on archive photo evidence).  Even today these areas are full of houses all of the same era.




Doesn't it....

And that logic worked for a while.    Building in vacant fields and  
expecting traffic to materialize worked fine in 1900-1915.  But  
after World War One we wanted our automobiles.  If you had a shiny  
new Model T,  you had a girl friend.    (Sex sells, doesn't it.)

Think of all those lines that Henry Huntington built in the Southland  
under the Pacific Electric banner to support his housing  
developments.  I think Donald Duke once told me that there was one  
line, perhaps Newport Beach or Huntington Beach that did not serve  
Huntington real estate.    All the rest did.

And then the automobile came and the transit promoters were no longer  
stupid enough to follow the axiom, "build and they will come."

Remember how Toronto Railway, in the 1920s, refused to build into new  
areas because they felt there would be no profit in doing it.  That  
resulted in the formation of the Toronto Civic Railway, which  
eventually bought out Toronto Railway, and became TTC.  (I do not  
remember which order.)    It was one of the earlier public transit  
agencies in the nation.

And how about the parent company of Pittsburgh Railways?  San  
Francisco's Market Street Railway, owned by United Railroads  (United  
was the PRC founder), refused to build into certain parts of that  
city's Western Addition feeling there was no money to be had.  So  
what happened?  The city formed the Municipal Railway in 1912 (I  
think that was the date) to provide service to those areas.  Lines B  
and C ran out Geary to the ocean while K, L, M, N and J were south of  
Golden Gate Park.  Muni acquired Market Street Railway in 1944 and I  
think it is rather ironic that the lines running today are Muni  
lines; the Market Street lines were all abandoned after the war.    
One exception.  The new line on South Third Street restores service  
that Market Street Railway abandoned before World War II.

I don't know enough about the Cleveland or Boston history to know if  
those early public agencies resulted from attempts to build into  
virgin territory or early solutions to business failures.

New York was the largest early public agency when Brooklyn and Queens  
Transit / BMT and the Interborough Rapid Transit fell into city  
ownership in 1940.  That was more city political greed and  
manipulation under Mayor LaGuardia than any above board reasons.    
The city had previously built the Independent division of the subway  
starting about 1930-1933 competing with the IRT and BMT.  (Certainly  
you know I'm going to say that the city building a subway under the  
IRT's subsidiary Manhattan Railway Corporation's 6th Avenue elevated  
is not fair competition and has political overtones.  Sounds to me  
like, "You'll do it our way or else.")


On Sep 12, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> Sort of reminds me of those CSL lines like Argo, which ran into the  
> prairies
> outside Chicago on open track, laid on "streets" mapped by the city/ 
> county,
> but not yet built.
>
> K.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 7:19 AM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh one-man cars
>
>
>> Ed Lybarger mentioned that a year or so ago.  Brookline via South
>> Bank ran from Brookline Blvd and Queensboro Avenue to downtown via
>> the P&CS beginning September 12, 1910.  It was discontinued November
>> 1910 due to "traffic insufficient."  Nobody lived there that early.
>
>