[PRCo] Another guy complaining...

Sun May 11 14:44:29 EDT 2014

Fred

Some points: 

1)  By the methodology you used for other routes, Rt 69 was a cutback of 68 so the ridership should have been included in that line's figures.

2)  Since when was 10/15 an East End route!!!!????

3)  The really long East End routes did have zone fares--don't know how you equate that, though, unless you have revenue rather than ridership figures per route.

Dwight
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fred Schneider 
  To: Western PA Trolley discussion 
  Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2014 12:55 PM
  Subject: [PRCo] Another guy complaining...

  Another guy complaining because other routes have more service than the route he uses.   The link leads only to the editorial page; you will have to scan down until you find the headline reading "Greenfield Car Line Service Criticized."

  http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=mvUaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=40wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4977%2C2388619

   And now guys … the facts.    Again we are bitching because another line has more people riding and requires heavier service.   The guy complaining was riding the lightest hauling line coming up 4th Avenue so wouldn't we expect the company to dispatch the least number of cars?    And wouldn't we expect the newspaper to print something that would stir up the dirt?  Sure as God made green apples … because stirring the dirt sells papers.   

  The heaviest car line on Fourth Avenue?   … Route 68 had a weekday average load of 28,200.   Of course that was influenced by summer weekdays at Kennywood.

  Second heaviest would be 55 East Pittsburgh via 2nd Avenue and it's short turn, 57 Glenwood.  The typical weekday load was about 25,000.

  Third was route 56 McKeesport with a normal weekday volume of about 22,000 riders.

  O. M. G. … those three routes on 2nd Avenue added up to more than PATCO was hauling between Philadelphia and Lindenwold in its prime and they were running long trains in the rush hours!   

  Fourth would be route 64 East Pittsburgh via Wilkinsburg and its short turn 66 Wilkinsburg via Forbes.   The two of them hauled almost 13,000 fares on weekdays.

  Then we have route 67 to Rankin and Braddock with 18,300 followed by the Carrick car he mentions with 18,100 fares.

  Next to the lowest was 69 Squirrel Hill carried about 6800.

  Finally, his line carried fewer than 6,500.  One would expect about 24 cars to come down 4th Avenue on other routes for every car on this character's line.

  Why?   Because he lived on a line 5 miles long with the only population at the top of the hill near the outer end of the line.   The inner four miles was wedged in between the B&O and the mills or in a ravine heading up the hill to Greenfield .. not much there to stimulate riding from his 'hood.   

  And he thinks a bus company would want to serve that 'hood?   Maybe every 20 minutes then or every hour today.

  Now guys … if you want to print and save the story, it is attached as a old style word file.     And if you want the route data, also attached is an Excel file showing all that information from the 1948 Lougee study.    I have added several addition columns to the basic Lougee data.

  One ranks the routes by the raw number of passengers.

  But just because we haul people doesn't mean we make money.   So I also added a column for passengers per route mile, which is an important number when we are not charging zone fares.   And then an additional column ranking the routes according to passengers per mile.   

  That shows that the heaviest routes are, as we always understood, mostly those long East End lines like 88, 82, 87, 68, 77/54, 55, 56, 75, 94 and 10/15 in that order.   But those that hauled the most per mile were 22, 85, 88, 50, 82, 59, 44, 53, 94 (95) and 8 in that order.   You really didn't expect to see that Homestead - Homeville shuttle, now did ya?  Sixth heaviest on a car-mile basis.  

  Of course the worst routes were … well, you look at it.

  A third array of data I wish I had but have no way of calculating would be passengers carried per car hour.   Naturally it probably would not be too impressive on routes like 55 and 88 where you are just slogging along.

  Nuff B. S.    

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