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'PHILADELPHIA SUBURBAN TRANSPORTATION CO. ACF # 101'

 
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Mr. Linsky
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 5071
Location: BRENTWOOD, CA. - WOODMERE, N.Y.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 5:19 pm    Post subject: 'PHILADELPHIA SUBURBAN TRANSPORTATION CO. ACF # 101' Reply with quote

Pictured at its Victory Avenue garage in the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Darby is fleet # 101 - a 1937 35 passenger ACF Model H-17-S and one of four likenesses numbered 101 to 104 operating for the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (PSTC) (Red Arrow Line) of that Keystone State city but originally purchased by PSTC's predecessor Aronimink Transportation Company.

The photo, snapped sometime in 1951, must have been among the last ever taken of #101 because it was in August of that year that PSTC purchased fifteen new GM TDH 4509's with one being numbered 101.

Of note on #101 are the New Jersey style passenger safety window bars, a windshield wiper only on the driver's side (not uncommon on trucks and buses of the era) and a plate between the left headlight and directional signal which is unexplainable.

A little Red Arrow history;

John Mott Drew was one of Darby, Pennsylvania's most prominent and successful African-American businessmen operating a profitable ice company as well as involving himself in community affairs.

In the years before World War I, he saw that many women in Darby were employed as domestics at homes in affluent Lansdowne and the surrounding area, and that it was difficult for them to get to their places of employment because they were unreachable by trolley.

In 1917 he and his friend Louis Lind raised over $2,000 as a down payment on two buses and formed the John M. Drew Bus Line to operate a jitney service from Darby to Lansdowne and Upper Darby's 69th Street Terminal.

In 1930 the Drew Bus Line was purchased by the Aronimink Transportation Company, which later became the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company's Red Arrow Lines.

In 1970, Red Arrow was taken over by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) which controls bus operations in five of the state's southeastern counties to this day and is the sixth largest of its kind in the nation.

Photo courtesy of 'Vintage-Vault75' and is available at eBay as item # 171131719133.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

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