[PRCo] Mixed Bag Of Old Pittsburgh

Sun Jun 30 00:54:43 EDT 2013

As far as talking to "fellow operators", no. They are probably residing in
Arizona or Flori-duh these days. PATransit has a strict policy of 25-years
then retire, no ifs, ans, or buts. That means that the "newest" operator I
could have known would have retired in 2008 or 2009.

The service, while still being very intense on some routes, is not what it
was in the 1970s and 1980s. They still call the rail vehicles "trolleys"
however. The equipment appears much newer these days than what it was back
in my era with PATransit. That goes for both buses and trolleys. Pittsburgh
always has special events going on someplace in the city. They do run
"two-car-trains" during special events times and weekday rush hours also.
There are far more "articulated" buses now than when I worked for them.
Also the route structure has changed a lot but it actually now seems to be
in tune with where the customers want to go, at least in the city and the
first and second rings of boroughs. Destination Signs are very interesting
now also. Aspects such as 44-Knoxville   /   44 Downtown-Pennsylvania
Station ; 27 - Fairywood (used to be 27-Carnegie) ; 75-Wilkinsburg   /
South Side-Oakland  (A newer routing for the old 75 line) ; 61D-Murray
Avenue   /   61D Waterfront (The old 68 line going to Homestead and not
continuing on to Kennywood and McKeesport) And many more interesting signs
on the buses. The trolleys, on the other hand, have very bland signs
reading "Red Line", "Blue Line", etc. Generally, PATransit is doing OK
right now. However, a source of dedicated funding is a must if public
transit is to continue as a viable alternative to the personal vehicle.

Traffic is snarled all over Pittsburgh from about 6am to 7pm every weekday.
This, of course, do to the terrain and the narrow roads. I stay off the
Parkways (there are now three, the East, West, and North Parkways) during
heavy traffic periods. I find that my shortcuts "over the mountains" may
take a few minutes longer but I keep moving better than on the Parkways.
The State Legislature is now debating a bill to provide some support to
transit authorities but it's not really enough. A change of politicians
from the conservatives to a more progressive bunch is needed before
anything will be done to make public transit better. After all, didn't you
know that we have a "right" to drive our vehicles, even if it does take two
hours to go fifteen miles and contributes to the destruction of the planet.

On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 11:19 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell
<pcc_sr at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Forbes field looks very good as does the aerial of the Point.
> The latter may be about 1940 as Fort Pitt Blvd appears intact from
> east of Liberty to the Smithield bridge.  Clarity in this photo
> is much better than most.
>
> Mr.Brannon-- How does Pat compare now as to when you left?
> Have you seen and talked to former fellow operators?  What
> is your impression of the system?
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 6/27/13, Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net> wrote:
>
> From: Herb Brannon <hrbran at cavtel.net>
> Subject: [PRCo] Mixed Bag Of Old Pittsburgh
> To: "Western PA Trolley discussion" <
> pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org>
> Date: Thursday, June 27, 2013, 9:12 PM
>
> I stumbled upon a "varied" lot of photos of Old Pittsburgh. If anyone has
> any additional info on the individual photos, I'm all ears.
>
> No, I did not put these through the "photo shrinking" program, so some are
> big and some are small.
>
> --
> Herb Brannon
> Back In The Burgh !
>
>
>
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-- 
Herb Brannon
Back In The Burgh !
Let's Go Bucs

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