[PRCo] Route 29 Thornburg

[Schneider Fred]

Subject Beal's book, page 403:

Beal claims that route 29 Thornburg was again run from downtown  
Pittsburgh to Thornburg beginning 5 April 1932.   When I saw that, I  
went back to the route cards because I had just typed them into my  
computer file last night.

The route cards are very clear.   Service to downtown Pittsburgh was  
suspended March 18, 1918.   There is no mention of it being restored  
at any time thereafter.

They show it going from double-truck to single-truck cars on June 3,  
1922.   However, Pittsburgh did not acquire the two second-hand  
Birneys that we are told ran on route 29 until 1926.   The notation  
of car type vanished in 1924 so we have no idea what they were  
running after March 1924.  An annotation reappears in 1937 "OD" which  
might stand for one-door car.

 From August 1930 until abandonment, route 29 only scheduled one car,  
Sunday through Saturday.   Considering the round trip from Thornburg  
to downtown Pittsburgh was nearly 14 miles and the operating speed is  
about 8 to 9 miles per hour average with a low-speed 4200,  I thing  
it is pretty clear that the line wasn't running into downtown at any  
time in the 1930s.  The round trip would have consumed about 100  
minutes.

The notation "high speed" was not put onto the route cards until 1937  
but cars were speed up starting in the early 1930s.   Had Pittsburgh  
Railways put high speed cars on routes 27 and 30, one would not  
expect them to want a low speed 4200 screwing up the schedules on the  
same route from Crafton to Pittsburgh, particularly because some of  
the more wealthy riders (the ones they wanted to keep from using  
automobiles) lived in Crafton.

Now if Beal or someone can show me a timetable from April 4, 1932 to  
prove that the scribe forgot to record it on the route card............