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Pittsburgh Railways OnLine |
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The 1950s: Downhill, SlowlyPRCo was reorganised in 1951, keeping its name though combined with the Pittsburgh Motor Coach Company. The reconstituted firm soon initiated a moderate programme of route rationalisation, closing many short shuttle lines which were primarily operated with double- ended conventional cars.Fifteen routes were closed between 1951 and 1953, but the most significant service reduction was the end of the two interurban services, in 1953. In that year, as previously noted, PRCo closed its Washington and Charleroi/Roscoe lines, thereafter operating the Drake and Library suburban lines over the interurbans' respective routes within Allegheny County.
1954 witnessed only one outright abandonment, with North Side route 12 Evergreen closing in February. In April, West End routes 31 Sheraden-Ingram and 34 Elliott were consolidated to form 34/31 Elliott-Sheraden; trackage which was closed as a result remained intact in the interest of operational flexibility. The system suffered more damage by far from a protracted strike by PRCo motormen in early 1954. As is often the case, post-strike ridership took a sharp downward dip. After the strike, a handful of conventional cars moped around the various carhouses as potential spares, but their numbers dwindled and the system was effectively PCC-operated from 1954 onwards. The old "yellow" cars would venture out only as work cars or fan trip specials before meeting the torch or passing into the hands of preservationists.
Previous bus conversions aside, PRCo was still committed to rail service, in principle, into the mid-1950s. Most routes which had been abandoned up to that point were too lightly- patronised to justify continued rail operation, and many were closed to avoid costly road, track, or bridge repairs. No routes were abandoned in 1955 or 1956, the first closure-free years since 1950.
As well, no PCC cars had been intentionally removed from the roster prior to May 18, 1955. On that date, 18 PCCs were among the cars damaged when fire struck PRCo's Homewood Shops complex. Seven of the scorched streamliners would eventually be returned to service; eleven of their sisters were damaged beyond repair, and their bodies were soon sold for scrap. One of the victims was car 10-year-old car 1600--the Queen Mary--matriarch of the Post-War all-electric PCC model.
Declining patronage soon drove PRCo. to its nadir, owing partly to reckless competition from more than 30 independent bus operators. Ironically, wholesale conversion to buses was not cash-strapped PRCo's panacea; pricey new buses and the expense of ripping up tracks (and repaving streets in many cases) were beyond the company's means. Public operation seemed close at hand, so PRCo held tight and kept running trams wherever it was practical to do so.
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| Air PCC 1520 passes a vintage gas-guzzler. Roger DuPuis Collection; photographer unknown. |
The closing years of the decade also brought more route abandonments. Three marginal North Side routes--4 Troy Hill, 1 Spring Garden and 5 Spring Hill--were closed in 1957. 1958 brought three more closures, but of a more substantial nature. On September 20, service was discontinued on lengthy East End routes 60 East Liberty-Homestead, 68 McKeesport via Homestead and 69 Squirrel Hill.
Also known as Homestead-Duquesne-Mckeesport, route 68 was the system's longest, variously said to be 13.8 or 16.0 miles in length. Beloved by generations of Pittsburghers as the Kennywood car, route 68's lumbering trams were less popular with local politicians in the communities of McKeesport and Duquesne. The politicos rejoiced when Pennsylvania's State Highway Department failed to incorporate streetcar tracks into planned highway reconstruction projects in the area. The Highway Department's decision stood despite opposition from PRCo., with the railway company protesting that it lacked enough buses to serve the routes.
The great coup--the beginning of the end, many say--came in 1959. By that summer, closure of the old Point Bridge was imminent. All six West End routes used this span to reach downtown, and PRCo. had been denied trackage rights over its replacemment, the Fort Pitt Bridge. The West End routes formed almost a separate system; their next-to-last physical link with the rest of the system had been via the tracks of former route 32 P&LE Transfer, abandoned on June 6, 1953. Surviving route 32 trackage along Carson Street between Smithfield Street and the Point Bridge was closed circa 1956, leaving the West End lines linked to the rest of the system only by the Point Bridge trackage. The die was cast, and the six West End routes closed together on June 20, 1959: 25 Island Avenue, 26 West Park, 27 Carnegie, 28 Heidelberg, 30 Crafton-Ingram and 34/31 Elliott-Sheraden. The derelict Point Bridge, incidentally, survived until 1970.
Within a decade, Pittsburgh's mighty streetcar system would come dangerously close to extinction.
