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<DIV><FONT size=4>Fred</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Who was “they?” </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>It sounds as if “West Penn Securities Corporation” was a DIY
equipment trust certificate provider. CCC held the paper on quite a few of
their last production cars and wound up in several cases taking them back for
non payment. I’m sure they were quite happy not to have to do this with
the WP cars.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>Dwight</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=fwschneider@comcast.net
href="mailto:fwschneider@comcast.net">Fred Schneider</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, 22 May, 2014 21:23</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">Western PA Trolley
discussion</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [PRCo] Reading - Pgh. Press - March 1 thru
9.</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV
style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>Well,
we know the reason for the demise of the Allegheny Valley St. Ry., with its
seven-year-old cars was repaving and widening route 28 up the
valley. I think it is also reasonably well known that, since the
Allegheny Valley Street Railway did not have a dividend stream from the power
company (Allegheny Power) like the Coke Region did, management had to protect
its investment in the new cars in another way. They would not risk
having the railway buy them and then having the railway go broke. So
they (cars 831-842) were put into the ownership of West Penn Securities
Corporation until they were paid off and then they were sold to the West Penn
Railways for a nominal amount. I never ceased to be amazed that,
unlike the management of todays politically affiliated transit authorities, West
Penn's management (and most other private company managers) were anything but
mentally challenged. <BR><BR>I think there was also a bridge project that
killed one of the two other up river (Leechburg-Apollo or Kittanning-Ford City)
lines but I am not sure. Remember that they both lasted,
unmodernized with 30+ year old Stephenson cars until about 1936. One
of those was very heavily damaged in the '36 flood. <BR><BR>The only
other one was Oakdale - McDonald. How do you justify keeping
something in the middle of no where, unconnected with anything, running beyond
1920 other than we have not paid it off yet??? <BR><BR>Wheeling … that we
know was a case of the bonds came due.<BR><BR><BR><BR>On May 21, 2014, at 4:48
PM, Dwight Long wrote:<BR><BR>> <BR>> Fred<BR>> <BR>> I believe that
during the 1946 strike the Washington line operated only between Washington and
Canonsburg. I don't know what the status of Charleroi was, but if it is
true that WP supplied power to non-Allegheny County subs, they could have run
between Elco loop in Roscoe and Riverview loop, or between Charleroi and Roscoe,
or between Charleroi and Riverview. The Donora line could have run between
Riverview and Donora. But I don't know if they did. Some research
into the archives at Arden would no doubt disclose the answer.<BR>> <BR>>
Did paving projects also do in the outlying small operations? (Leave
Wheeling Traction and M-WP out of this for the moment). I'm sure WP looked
at the net present value of the estimated income streams if rail operations were
continued, and compared this with the capital outlay required for the
repaving. (obviously there were other issues to consider, but that is a
simplistic way of looking at it). They MIGHT have put up the bucks for
Crawford Avenue with consideration of all the factors. Or they might not
have. They could have continued to operate south of Connellsville without
Crawford Avenue, and that might have used enough power for their purposes in
load balancing. I don't know. Certainly the fact that the issue
never arose relegates all this to the area of
supposition---------------------<BR>> <BR>> Dwight<BR>> -----
Original Message ----- <BR>> From: Fred Schneider <BR>> To:
Western PA Trolley discussion <BR>> Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 1:18
PM<BR>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] Reading - Pgh. Press - March 1 thru
9.<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> I'll agree that there was no residential base
load as we know it today … nothing but 25 or 40 watt light bulbs. We
ironed or clothes by heating the iron on the kitchen stove. Furnaces
were coal and often ductless … just a whole in the floor over the furnace all
the way to the second floor so there was no fan load.
Refrigerator? Well, GE began making them in 1930 and before that we used
ice boxes although from the teens onward the commercial ice plants were often
electrically powered instead of steam powered. <BR>>
<BR>> What was the industrial base load? What did mining
use? What did the glass works and foundries and steel mills
use? What about the local ice plants to make block ice for your ice
boxes … they needed to run some pretty heavy ammonia compressors. And West
Penn Power wasn't simply the railways' territory, it included Armstrong County,
Washington County, some of the fringes of Allegheny County, Greene
County<BR>> <BR>> How fragile the railways were was impressed on me,
Dwight, by the removal of the McKeesport city operations in the
1930s. That division of the company hauled more people any way you
measured it than any other part of the system … more overall, more per route
mile, more per man hour but as soon as the city of McKeesport said we are
repaving the main drag down toward your carbarn and you are going to pay your
share, West Penn abandoned service. As an aside, part of their base
load included some Pittsburgh Railways substations … Tylerdale, Canonsburg,
Thompsonville, Charleroi etc. Seems to me that in the 1946 Duquesne
Light Strike and the 1936 flood, the interurbans and Donora and the Washington
city lines continued to run. <BR>> <BR>> Same thing
happened when the borough of Youngwood had a paving project in 1939 … the back
line had to go.<BR>> <BR>> Those two incidents convinced me that if
Connellsville had not redone Crawford Ave in the 1920s and gotten that out of
the way, had such a project come up in the 1930s it would have wiped out the
whole system because you could not have gotten to the shops.
<BR>> <BR>> <BR>> <BR>> On May 21, 2014, at 11:43 AM, Dwight
Long wrote:<BR>> <BR>>> <BR>>> Ed<BR>>> <BR>>> Not
only would the write down have been deleterious to their stock values, it would
in a much more practical sense have removed their ability to run their power
plants at an efficient level. The railways provided the base load needed
for efficient operation of them. It was not until the boom times (in
electricity consumption, inter alia) after WW II that power demand in WP
territory became high enough to take up a sufficient amount of installed
capacity to make elimination of the rail demand an attractive thing.<BR>>>
<BR>>> Also, I doubt that the railways, on a true net/net cash basis, lost
money at least until the post war period. (individual lines were hopeless losers
and got axed early on.) Of course an enterprise cannot sustain itself in
the long run if it does not make a profit that includes not only positive cash
flow but also coverage of depreciation, amortization, taxes and interest.
So you are correct, the handwriting was on the proverbial wall not long after
the Great War, and I believe WP management was fully aware of that. The
way they executed gradual rundown of the transit assets was, IMHO, rather
clever.<BR>>> <BR>>> Dwight<BR>>> <BR>>> From: Edward H.
Lybarger <BR>>> Sent: Tuesday, 20 May, 2014 14:38<BR>>> To: 'Western
PA Trolley discussion' <BR>>> Subject: Re: [PRCo] Reading - Pgh. Press -
March 1 thru 9.<BR>>> Peak year for coal and coke was 1916. Clairton
opened full time in 1918.<BR>>> Last year West Penn paid the bond interest
out of the fare box was 1920. It<BR>>> all fits very
precisely. The terminals were joint ventures with the power<BR>>>
company, which eased the burden a bit. The 830s were part of a
$400,000<BR>>> upgrade of AV Street Ry and were needed to convert to
one-man operation.<BR>>> <BR>>> They didn't exactly know when they
finished the system in 1914 what loomed<BR>>> on the horizon. And if
they had dumped the railway company as soon as it<BR>>> became
unprofitable in the fullest sense of the word, it would have killed<BR>>>
the power company...the organization simply couldn't have taken that big
a<BR>>> write-down and still been viable. But since Railways owned
(in 1916) 100%<BR>>> of Power, it wasn't an issue to subsidize one from
the other.<BR>>> <BR>>> Ed<BR>>> <BR>>> -----Original
Message-----<BR>>> From:
pittsburgh-railways-bounces@mailman.dementix.org<BR>>>
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounces@mailman.dementix.org] On Behalf Of
Fred<BR>>> Schneider<BR>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 11:01
AM<BR>>> To: Western PA Trolley discussion<BR>>> Subject: Re: [PRCo]
Reading - Pgh. Press - March 1 thru 9.<BR>>> <BR>>> Yup.
I chuckled two about Mitchell making it one of the most modern<BR>>>
transportation companies in the country. Maybe up to the early 1920s
until<BR>>> the public quit riding. <BR>>> <BR>>>
But we also know that the mines were already fading in 1910 when West
Penn<BR>>> built their last routes. If memory is working, it
was about 1910 that the<BR>>> Clairton by-product recovery plant was built
and that killed a lot of the<BR>>> beehive coke ovens along the West
Penn.<BR>>> <BR>>> The last investment was around 1927-1930 . the
new terminals in<BR>>> Connellsville, Uniontown and Greensburg and the
attempt to get the cars off<BR>>> some of the busiest downtown streets in
Uniontown. The 800 series cars for<BR>>> the Allegheny Valley were
quasi-modern, meaning sealed gear boxes and 300<BR>>> volt motors but the
brake and control package was anything but modern. <BR>>>
<BR>>> <BR>>> On May 19, 2014, at 8:40 PM, Dwight Long
wrote:<BR>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>> Fred<BR>>>>
<BR>>>> I love the part about Mitchell helping to make West Penn one of
the most<BR>>> modern transportation companies in the
country!<BR>>>> <BR>>>> I think Federal pre-emption of local
ordnances came as a result of lots of<BR>>> similar things to the
McKeesport fiasco.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Dwight<BR>>>> -----
Original Message ----- <BR>>>> From: Fred Schneider <BR>>>>
To: Western PA Trolley discussion <BR>>>> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014
8:07 PM<BR>>>> Subject: [PRCo] Reading - Pgh. Press - March 1 thru
9.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>> The Pittsburgh and West
Virginia Terminal fire .. look in March 22, 1946.<BR>>> The fire happened
over night Mar. 21-22.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Philadelphia Company
wins delay<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=E1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3000%<BR>>>
2C15764<BR>>>> <BR>>>> No page forward to page two, same
edition. Bottom of column one. Look<BR>>> at that
picture at the bottom of the first column of<BR>>>> the clothing
department in Albert J. Mannsmann's department store in East<BR>>>
Liberty. Hard to believe a neighborhood department store when we
don't<BR>>> even have them downtown in our cities any
longer.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> The next link is two columns over to
the right . same page. I put this<BR>>> in for Ed
Lybarger. AFL and CIO are battling over who should represent
the<BR>>> employees at Champion Stores, the company store for Pittsburgh
Consolidation<BR>>> Coal Company. So when "I owe my soul to
the company store" and it is shut<BR>>> down and I have no money, do I
starve? Or do I stick my shot gun in<BR>>> someone's face to
get money to eat? <BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=E1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3639%<BR>>>
2C25910<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2188%<BR>>>
2C938893<BR>>>> <BR>>>> It is hard to believe how primitive
aviation was back then. This is<BR>>> also for Ed but the rest
of you might get a kick out of "Moon Township<BR>>> Airport Due to Get
Funds." <BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=E1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3707%<BR>>>
2C83272<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Personnel action at Pittsburgh
Railways<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=E1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3707%<BR>>>
2C8327<BR>>>> <BR>>>> We won't give up harassing the power
company<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FFMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1579%<BR>>>
2C291182<BR>>>> <BR>>>> The Pittsburgh, Shawmut and Northern
Railway was sold in March for 1.5<BR>>> million dollars.
Doesn't say so here but the last trains ran about 27 days<BR>>>
later.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FVMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3055%<BR>>>
2C650711<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2557%<BR>>>
2C905732<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GVMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1940%<BR>>>
2C2206355<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Pittsburgh Railways unhappy that
Montour Bus Company wants to serve<BR>>> Spring Hill<BR>>>>
<BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2136%<BR>>>
2C940320<BR>>>> <BR>>>> This link is about eight hurt on a
Greensburg-Blairsville bus when an oil<BR>>> truck slid into it on the
Lincoln Highway west of Latrobe. But the story<BR>>> to it's
right is a real winner too.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5161%<BR>>>
2C1032106<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Baldwin Locomotive Company shut down
temporarily because they could not<BR>>> get steel. There were
peripheral stories that I did not send about coal<BR>>> strikes and a lack
of gas that also affected steel mills. The second link<BR>>>
comes a few days later when the United Mine Workers and John L. Lewis
lost<BR>>> in the Supreme Court for breaching a contract with the
government. The<BR>>> entire page of the paper in the
third link gives some idea about what was<BR>>> going on in the coal
fields in 1947.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1546%<BR>>>
2C1062045<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GFMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5426%<BR>>>
2C1466133<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GVMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1945%<BR>>>
2C2013973<BR>>>> <BR>>>> This guy must have loved his
work. H. L. Mitchell of West Penn achieves<BR>>> 45 years in
harness.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FlMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5121%<BR>>>
2C1062595<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Philadelphia Company's hearing is
recessed<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=F1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5770%<BR>>>
2C1287583<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Same old - same old. I
love this. They had clean coal back in 1947<BR>>> except that
they were unable to find it. Coal industry accused of<BR>>>
attempting to sabotage Pittsburgh's smoke control program. I find
the<BR>>> whole thing rather amusing. This is the only item I have
posted so far but<BR>>> the papers have been filled with it.
One of the better items prior to this<BR>>> was an editorial cartoon
showing Harrisburg aiming a canon at Pittsburgh's<BR>>> attempts to clean
up the city because the coal companies were buying the<BR>>>
legislators.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=F1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6205%<BR>>>
2C1324122 <BR>>>> <BR>>>> Sounds like this chap employed
the law firm of Dewey, Cheetum and Howe to<BR>>> sue Pittsburgh
Railways. <BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GFMbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2250%<BR>>>
2C1494659<BR>>>> <BR>>>> Fantastic article about all the rules
McKeesport inflicted on the B&O.<BR>>> I can only wonder when the ICC
or the FRA told the city to go pound sand.<BR>>> I know of similar cases
where cities were told that they had no control over<BR>>>
railroads.<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G1MbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1kwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4302%<BR>>>
2C2502871<BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>> <BR>>>>
<BR>>>> <BR>>>>
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