Hi all:

I am looking for articles, links, and materials on the debate over Skybus in Pittsburgh approximatetly 1965 to 1980. I would use these for lesson materials in a transport course.

I have already found this site:
http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Skybus.html#bm_story

If you have any links or materials to directly upload here, I look forward to them.

My objective is to show how various goals and transport objectives remain constant over time, and consider how to judge today's novel transport technologies.

Given their proximity to Pittsburgh, the Penna. Trolley Museum MAY have been given any archives on the project from Westinghouse--but it may have been rejected or deaccessioned as "not rail transit."

The Md. Rail Heritage Library at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum did get a large stash of "monorail"-related materials from the estate of the late Lee Rogers, but I do not specifically recall any Skybus material.

I think I recall that the skybus was going to use the old Wabash Tunnel on the south side of Pittsburgh. The tunnel was rehabilitated at some point for the project, and I inspected it in the early '90's for a different project. It was in great shape but the sky bus project had built a concrete plinth (?) down the middle of the tunnel which had to be removed if the tunnel was going to be used for normal vehicle (I think it has been). Larry Lovejoy, trolley museum member, my former boss and PBQ&D manager probably has all of the facts and hopefully will chime in here.
Ned

I just found this Ebay listing for ERA Headlights 1969. The postage is a deal killer for me.

I don't suppose anyone has a copy they can scan?

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Era-Headlights-1969-September-October-Pittsburgh-Skybus-or-Rail-Transit-/333107178329?hash=item4d8ebc2b59

PTM's Archivist Emeritus tells me that there's an entire four drawer file cabinet full of Skybus/Transit Expressway documents. If Steven can be more specific about what he needs, it can likely be provided.

The Brookline Connection website is a pretty good summation of the matter. For those who don't have the time to read through it all, the gist of the issue was this: Local politicians of one persuasion who were interested in stimulating business for local manufacturers were pretending to be experts in transportation planning. This was abetted by said businesses (and their competitors) who were pretending to be altruistic corporate citizens. Plus, this was occurred at the tail end of the era when *everybody knew* that trolley cars were obsolete dinosaurs which should be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. A coalition of strange bedfellows, including a leading politician of the opposite stripe, came together in resistance to the project and there was a significant kerfuffle lasting the better part of a decade.

Eventually, everybody got a bit of what they wanted. The “Transit Expressway Revenue Line” was never built. Most of the remaining trolley lines were upgraded into a light rail system, albeit one that is recognizably descended from a legacy streetcar system. Skybus and its descendent versions went on to become the most prolific "people mover" system for airports in the USA. And the whole experience led the Urban Mass Transit Administration (predecessor to today's Federal Transit Administration) to adopt new procedures for how proposed transit improvement projects were evaluated and funded. On a personal level, it launched me into what is now my 43rd year as a rail transit consultant.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

I was fortunate to ride the prototype as a youngster on many occasions. It was a major attraction during the Allegheny County Fair grounds that the Skybus circled around. They charged 10 cents for a round trip if I recall correctly. Pricey for us kids, but worth it! Very interesting attempt at the time. The mechanical building (car barn?) is still in use by the South Park maintenance department. One of the Skybus cars is on display at the WABCO site in West Mifflin, Pa.

Tim S.

Indeed one of the original South Park "Skybus" cars is preserved, restored, and on display at a plant in West Mifflin, PA. But that plant is not and never was any part of the WABCO (Westinghouse Air Brake) company. It originated as the Westinghouse ELECTRIC Transportation Div. and between 1983 and 2001 went through a series of new owners, ending up as part of Bombardier Transportation. I was part of the train control engineering activity at this site from 1972 to 2016.

I should note Westinghouse Electric and Westinghouse Air Brake were both founded by George Westinghouse but have always been separate companies. Both companies are historically associated with Pittsburgh PA.

Interestingly most Baldwin diesels have generators and motors from Westinghouse Electric but throttles, MU control and brakestands from Westinghouse Air Brake.

Phil Mulligan

Westinghouse developed and promoted the Skybus plan. When this became controversial WABCO promoted an alternative rail plan. They were competitors. Pittsburgh ended up building a hybrid subway, light rail line based on the existing prw streetcar lines to the south. In the opinion of many, it was over engineered and much more expensive than necessary. This has discouraged expansion beyond a line to the stadium across the river from downtown.

Thanks for the replies everyone - and especially Larry's lead. Unfortunately, I am unlikely to visit any time soon and visit said cabinet.

I think the question I am asking is really about the attraction of replacing steel wheel vehicles with rubber tire vehicles. It is a theme that occurs frequently since the 1960s when evaluating mass transit technologies. What is the attraction? I have yet to see any argumentation. It seems entirely subjective and emotional.

The Skybus system was so heavily evaluated and fought over, I would think for sure this question was analyzed in detail. So, I am really looking for material that has some data or scientific argument for why the rubber tired vehicle was superior to the rail vehicle.

A big part of the Skybus argument was the automation - but this should have been seen as separate from the rubber tire argument. Any rail vehicle could have been elevated and automated.

Lastly, I wonder why this technology became so popular for airports. In general, why have airports been so adverse to rail vehicles?

CentreKeystone - It’s a shame expansion has been tabled. Pgh really could use something other than busses. Light rail only goes to the south. Pittsburgh Railways was such an extensive network. As a little kid, I was infatuated with the PCC cars that roamed all over the place. BTW, welcome to the Interchange.

Steven - I’ve never understood the attraction to rubber tires unless it’s a less expensive maintenance item. I can kinda see that - cheaper parts and less expensive tools and machinery to maintain the cars.

Assuming you mean tires on rail/fixed track vehicles and not buses:

A list of asserted advantages and disadvantages is at this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro

My one ride on the Montreal Metro was on a system that, by comparison with DC's Metro, or NYC or Philly's uinderground/elevated systems, was stunningly quiet--about half the noise level of conventional rail.

My father is a ME/EE who worked for WABCO (now retired) during that era, and was involved with the "Plan B", if you will. Like what has been pointed out there was a lot of politics involved. The powers that be in the city and county had an absolute hatred for Pittsburgh Railways particularly in the post WWII era. Part of it was because PRY seemed to be a constant state of being under the control of a receiver. Because of that the many government entities were not getting any property taxes from them. Of course, one of the reasons that they were always bankrupt was the way those very government agencies taxed them since the incorporation of PRY in 1902, plus the laundry list of responsibilities that were attached to the franchises. The politicians referred to Pittsburgh as the "worlds largest trolley museum". They managed to get the state to form the Port Authority of Allegheny County in 1956, with an amendment in 1959 that allowed the Authority to acquire the 32 privately owned transit companies that served greater metropolitan area. That plan was implemented in 1963, with PAT taking over service in March of 1964. That's when the wholesale conversion of streetcar lines began.

As noted, PTM's Archivist can investigate specific questions. However, it might be a while since Covid-19 restrictions currently prevent us from accessing the Archives, which are located in a neighbor's building in the industrial park.



OK, that's a specific question we can likely investigate. However, I'll offer the opinion that the big attraction was that rubber tired systems are "not on rail". I sense this is a cultural thing for many of the "Greatest Generation" and early "Baby Boomers", all of whom came of age in an era when anything running on rails was considered stodgy and obsolete and "muscle car" automobiles were considered sexy, sleek, and sheik. Putting state-of-the-art transit on rubber tired piggybacks on that perspective. The same mind-set led to bizarre stylistic misadventures of that era, such as the Aerotrain.



Absolutely correct - back in that era. The driverless technology of the 1960s and '70s couldn't cope with at-grade operation, so Skybus was forced up on stilts. But today's autonomous vehicle technology changes the rules of the game. Personally, I think AVs are a solution in search of a problem, but that's another discussion.



See above. The entire mindset behind air transport is the muscle car mentality on steroids, with the cocksure attitude of a B-17 bomber pilot as lagniappe. It became a natural for airports to adopt rubber tired people movers for the same reasons. The aversion to rail is so pervasive that some rubber tired people mover systems even go into linguistic gyrations to avoid calling their coupled vehicles a "train". For example, the canned announcements in the people mover vehicles at Pittsburgh International Airport say "This transit is approaching the station. Please hold on".

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.