“On an average day we’ll have 495 buses in service,” James K. Farasey, RTC’s superintendent of transportation, told the Democrat and Chronicle
in March 1943. “Thirty more are being overhauled. Because priorities
make it difficult to get parts, a bus may be laid up for as much as two
or three weeks.”
Moreover, drivers kept getting drafted into the military.
Finding
replacements was tough, Farasey explained. Because peak hours were in
the early morning and late afternoon, the bus service frequently had its
drivers work split shifts. “Older men (exempt from the draft) don’t
like that. They’d rather go into war plants where they have a straight
eight-hour trick.”
In other words, more and more people were trying to catch fewer and fewer buses.
Talk about a “perfect storm”!
Bus service was overwhelmed, pushed to limit | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com
No comments:
Post a Comment