[PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots

Sun Sep 16 23:58:26 EDT 2012

   Wasn't Spruce St. paved, otherwise 42 would have survived as a subway-surface route????? Also, PCC cars were not life expired/depreciated.  But there were 1500-2000 standard cars that were 30-50 years old.  And in the 1950s, the subway surface tunnels were being extended to 40th St.   
 > Subject: [PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots
> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
> Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:46:12 -0400
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> 
> St. Louis, according to George Arnoux who worked for them, was just a good business property which was out to make money.  If trolleys worked, they ran them.   If buses worked, they drove them.  George pointed out to me that they never had any plans to covert the property to bus; they did it only when the city came up with a highway project that cost Public Service more than they would ever recover.  
> 
> Yes, I did push the trigger too soon.  NCL was GM, Mack, Phillips, Standard and others.   You could probably by a share too if you wanted it.
> 
> I am also amazed by people who complain about how GM and NCL converted Philadelphia Transportation Co.   One of the chaps at the East Penn meeting a week ago told me he had a document that I should look at … but he hasn't showed it to me … a circa 1950 before NCL proposal by PTC to convert most of the system to bus.   He noted that there were some differences between how it worked out.  PTC originally planned to convert route 60 to bus and keep route 42.   NCL converted route 42 and kept route 60.   But the process was very similar … we will keep some of the best routes and convert most of it to bus.
> 
> The average railfan needs to have a scapegoat on which to blame the demise of his toys.  They cannot accept basic economics.
> 
> Look at Lancaster, Pennsylvania for example … 6th largest rail property in Pennsylvania in mileage and fleet but smaller in terms of revenue.   In the best year they ran over 100 inbound and over 100 outbound cars an hour and hauled only 40,000 riders.  By 1923 they were spending more than they were taking in.  They lost money in every year from 1923 through 1931 and in 1931 they told their bondholders … sorry guys, we're broke … we're not paying your interest this year.   The bondholders forced them into receivership and in 1932 CTC was divorced from EBS and PPL and UGI.  It became a bus company between 1932 and 1947.  
> 
> Allentown … that was another EBS property … 4th or 5th largest in the state … Lester Wismer said he never saw a full car on the Liberty Bell Route after gas rationing ended in 1945.  Obviously they were having problems much earlier because Nazareth, Emmaus-Macungie and Slatington were abandoned between 1929 and 1932.  
> 
> Reading Traction and Light was the other contender for 4th or 5th largest.  Like LVT it had over 200 miles of track.   It's first abandonment was the connection between Pottstown and Boyertown in 1926.   Oley Valley was gone in late 1920s or early 1930s.
> The entire Lebanon Division quit in 1930.  Norristown was gone about 1933.  The longest lines out of Reading were also gone early in the Depression leaving only the Reading City routes to go until 1947-1952.
> 
> And none of these were NCL properties.  
> 
> Scranton and Wilkes-Barre also began converting in the 1930s.
> 
> I guess we also forget that the PRT Bucks County, Montgomery County and Delaware County lines were converted in the 1920s and 1930s.  We blame NCL for the massacre.
> 
> And Pittsburgh had already wiped out Oakmont in 1937.  Shadeland went before the war.   So did one of the Manchester routes.   The thing that saved Pittsburgh was conversion to one man cars as early as they did.   They were no friend of the unions but they survived for a long time.
> 
> 
> On Sep 16, 2012, at 3:56 PM, Dwight Long wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Fred
> > 
> > GM did not own NCL.  They owned stock in it, but I don't think enough for 
> > control.  Enough to be favored on NCL's bus purchases, to be sure, but not 
> > enough to do what some fans think they nefariously did.
> > 
> > CF St. Louis, for example.  NCL was just a sensible business, not the 
> > monster it is often portrayed to be.
> > 
> > DEL
> > 
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> > To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 11:43 AM
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots
> > 
> > 
> >> And GM didn't own bus lines either, it controlled through ownership of 
> >> NCL.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Sep 16, 2012, at 12:43 AM, Dwight Long wrote:
> >> 
> >>> 
> >>> Fred
> >>> 
> >>> Actually that is a bit closer to the truth than the NCL shibboleth.  To 
> >>> the
> >>> extent that EB&S owned interest in streetcar lines, GE did own them. 
> >>> More
> >>> appropriate to say that GE controlled many streetcar lines, through EB&S.
> >>> So that one has some truth to it.
> >>> 
> >>> Dwight
> >>> 
> >>> ----- Original Message ----- 
> >>> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> >>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org>
> >>> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 1:50 PM
> >>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>>> You mean just like General Electric owned streetcar lines?
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> On Sep 15, 2012, at 1:35 PM, Dwight Long wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>>> Fred
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Perhaps he also believes that NCL “done em in.”
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Dwight
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> From: Fred Schneider
> >>>>> Sent: Friday, 14 September, 2012 11:38
> >>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> >>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots
> >>>>> Oh, one of those kind.   Just because the buses were more economical 
> >>>>> and
> >>>>> preserved free enterprise a little longer than would have happened with 
> >>>>> a
> >>>>> heavy investment in rails, substations, copper wires and owning your 
> >>>>> own
> >>>>> rights-of-ways, they still believe that economics 101 is false.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> On Sep 14, 2012, at 11:04 AM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>>> Scott Beveridge is a reporter for the Washington Observer-Reporter. 
> >>>>>> He
> >>>>>> repeatedly insists during interviews that the bus companies put the
> >>>>>> trolleys
> >>>>>> out of business, and won't listen when the facts are explained.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
> >>>>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org] On Behalf Of 
> >>>>>> Fred
> >>>>>> Schneider
> >>>>>> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 10:39 AM
> >>>>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> >>>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: some mon valley shots
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> The PCC looks like a bad print from a Bob Brown negative . a 
> >>>>>> commercial
> >>>>>> machine made (what you see is what you get) print.   The negative was
> >>>>>> perfectly OK.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> On Sep 14, 2012, at 8:50 AM, Derrick Brashear wrote:
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_beveridge/7983802853
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> and see also
> >>>>>>> https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/r270/523241_972537076092_5
> >>>>>>> 37767445_n.jpg which I home you can. Same guy. His comment is
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> They have some cool old trolley photos here at the Greater Monessen
> >>>>>>> Historical Society. This one was taken in Charleroi, circa 1920.
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> (from
> >>>>>>> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=972537076092&set=a.60265498776
> >>>>>>> 2.2145700.35106432&type=1&theater)
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Derrick
> >>>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>