I'll take your word for it Ed. I'd much rather do a West Penn trip. Although it doesn't look like I'm going to make it in the spring. Maybe summer again. I did get Thanksgiving week off FINALLY after 19 years seniority. Is this West Penn book a picture book or does it tell a story. If the later and the photo captions are wrong, how does one like myself know if the text is correct? I will certainly purchase the PTM book as I do not like to get steered in the wrong direction. Mark P.S.- I'll take your word for it also Fred. ;>) -- "Edward H. Lybarger" wrote: Future Ohio Valley trips in this area will be VERY expensive!!! Three times in six months was almost intolerable, though we did find the PRW leading up to Steubenville Heights yesterday. It's not a place I care to go back to very often. Or ever again. -----Original Message----- From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce@lists.dementia.org [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce@lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred Schneider Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 1:23 PM To: pittsburgh-railways@dementia.org Subject: [PRCo] Another Western PA field trip Mark McGuire would like this if he's coming up in the spring. Ed and I were out yesterday for the ultimate in depressing field trips. We followed the former Steubenville, East Liverpool and Beaver Valley Traction Company from the route 60 overpass near Midland PA down to Steubenville Ohio. This is a trip you need to get Ed to guide you on. When the SEL&BVT went out of business in 1939 because Ohio route 7 was being widened, the area's steel mills and pottery factories were still quiet busy. There was still money in the Ohio valley. Well, today those towns actually make Wheeling and Uniontown and even Donora look prosperous. The carbarn still stands in East Liverbile (oops, Liverpool), Ohio. A lot of the downtown buildings are gone, however. It's, as Ed remarked, the kind of a place "you wouldn't live in if you didn't have to." Grisley is an apt discription. We actually did find the location of one old picture of a PRC low-floor type car because the Little Building (the tallest building in town) is still there. But another picture showing one of the newest cars that later went to Allentown could not be located because every building behind it is gone. At Smith's Ferry the paving was scraped off the street last fall to repave it and the crew with the asphalt truck never came back. You can see all the old yellow brick and clearly see where the double track was. And I was sorely in need of a porta potty and the ties were still in the street ... well no they weren't ... and I was more in need of one afterward. And further down the line in Wellsville, the whole block where the station used to be must be where the largest old folks home in captivity is today. And Toronto ... well, you don't want to drive too fast or you'll wake up the people. Steubenville? About one-third of the downtown buildings have disappeared. Don't try to figure out where pictures were taken because the backdrop is gone. I have a great McKinley Crowley negative of a low-floor car marked "in Stubenville" ... its a street scene .... but there isn't a single building in that block that exists today. There are even places on the trip where we could find rail coming through the streets. But if you ask Ed to take you ... carry your own lunch and empty the bladder first because there are few conveniences left in the Upper Ohio Valley. This has to be the reverse of my January trip to Florida where the population increased three fold since 1950. Some of you may remember the brown glass in the building in Greentree on the Parkway West that reflects the evening sun back in your eyes? Or down in Charlotte NC, there is a similar brown glass building along the new trolley line? And down in Miami there is another kind of solid brown glass that they used after the last hurricane while waiting for the appraisers to get done in Nawlins. Well Steubenville has a lot of that kind ... brown plywood glass. They use it when buildings aren't used or when they get burnt out. OK Ed. Did I leave you something to play off of? Are you looking forward to conducting another trip?