[PRCo] Re: Fw: [Mileage] PAT Penn Sta. Spur

[Joshua Dunfield]

On 16 April 2012 05:39, Dwight Long <dwightlong at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Where did the Arlington-Warrington line go?  The name of it would suggest
> same routing as the 48, i.e. through the tunnel, not up New Arlington
> Avenue.

Panhandle Bridge to Arlington to Warrington to SHJ.

>> http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/52-Allentown%20LRV%20schedule0002.jpg

> 52-Allentown is confusing because of the actual Rt. 52, which as I stated
> earlier, was an extension of Rt. 50.  That was a very poor choice of number.

The numbering scheme that PAT used until just a couple of years ago
was highly systematic.  It tried to impose not just a radial-direction
ordering (inherited from PRCo and already an enormous improvement over
the random mishmashes at most transit systems) but also to give
meaning to the second digit: 1, 6 = ordinary bus; 3, 8 = express bus;
4, 9 = crosstown; 0, 5 = suburban shuttle.  2 and 7 somehow got used
for both the T and a seemingly random set of otherwise-ordinary bus
routes (e.g. 67A, 67F).  (I vaguely recall reading, perhaps on this
list, that 2 and 7 were used for bus routes acquired from a different
set of companies.)

I have to admit that virtually no one I knew when I lived in
Pittsburgh had noticed that the second digit meant anything.  Many
people thought it was cool once it was explained to them, but most of
them were also computer science graduate students, who tend to
appreciate such things.

You can still object to 52 on the basis that it shouldn't have been in
the 51-55 "bucket" at all, and there you may have a point.  The other
51-55 numbered routes that I recall were on East Carson Street, which
is noticeably "more counterclockwise".  (Moving those routes to 56-60
wouldn't make sense because 56-60 was used for the Second Avenue
buses, on the other side of the Mon.)  And most compellingly, the bus
route that more or less approximated the 52 was in the 46-50 bucket
(the 46K).

OTOH, if you drop the Arlington-Warrington route into the 46-50
bucket, that's the same bucket as the Overbrook Line, and therefore
the same number (assuming you're committed to using 2 and 7 for any T
route that reaches downtown).  PAT already had to make a special
announcement in the subway for the 52: "This train does NOT go to
Station Square!"  Giving it the same number and a different letter as
an Overbrook train that did go to Station Square would have been quite
confusing.

(Now that I think of it, the 52 *was* awfully irregular in not having
a letter as well as a number.)

> As to Brown Line, unless it was named for Bob Brown, which I strongly doubt,
> I don't want to know.  That is PAT Newspeak.
>
> Dwight

Brown is a perfectly respectable color, at least for a line you want
to get rid of...

-j.