78 Oakmont...

[Derrick J Brashear]

Yeah, this is old; it dates from when I was still using my
randomly-generated andrew system userid, from about a year after I got
internet access. There are a few factual errors, but this
gentleman's recollections are very interesting.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 13:52:06 -0400
From: bmiller at helix.nih.gov
To: db74+ at andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: Pittsburgh Railways

Thank you for your response re. O-scale PCC cars.  You asked about my
interest in PR Co.  I grew up in Oakmont, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh
on the Allegheny River.  My mother used to take me to the doctors
regurlarly.  We would take the Harmony Short Lines bus from Oakmont to
Highland Park (this was pre-PAT days) and catch the 84 Highland into East
Liberty.  PR had a carbarn at this site, just to the West of the lower
resevoir ( there is a high-rise apartment building there now).  I always
enjoyed this ride, which went onto 5th Avenue, then turned down Highland
Avenue into East Liberty.  I also liked the center "islands" for boarding
the trolleys.  My wife used to regurlay ride the 87 Ardmore from Forest
Hills to Wilkinsburg.  This ran down the center of Ardmore Road, in what is
now the median strip.  She also rode the trolley across Rankin Bridge to
Kennywood.  Unfortunately, PAT took over PR in an effort to consolidate
mass transit.  Their concept of consolidation  consisted of decimating the
remaining trolley network, in favor of their brainchild "Skybus".  Even so,
there were still a number of lines in some state of operation until the
late '60s.  I went to school down the road from you at Pitt, and remember
work trolleys operating on 5th Avenue and Forbes (which were both 2-way
streets then) until 1968.  Of course, I also remember watching Pirate games
in Forbes Field from the Cathedral of Learning too, which really dates me.

My father once told me that trolleys ran out to Oakmont, but that the line
was discontinued in the 1930s.  I thought that this may have been a branch
of West Penn Railways, which ran along the Allegheny to New Kensington on
the other side of the river, but this does not appear to be the case.  West
Penn ceased operations in the early 1950s, when I was still a toddler and
I'm sorry to have missed it.  There used to be a street in Oakmont which
still had tracks, but when I was last there it had been paved over, so that
I was unable to measure the gauge.  Its possible that this was one time a
line from Pittsburgh railways and I'm still trying to find out as time
permits.  

My oldest son has become a streetcar/trolley/LRV fanatic.  I have a copy of
a book entitled Street Railways of Pennsylvania, which has a good section
about PR in it and My son has worn it out.  I have not been able to find
any books written just on Pittsburgh and the PR, however.  2 years ago we
stopped at the Arden Trolley Museum and they had a couple of PCCs in the
orginal PR colors (red and cream).  The sight of them really brought back
memories and rekindled my interest.

It looks like the surviving South Hills trolley lines will survive, but it
is just a ghost of the system that I remember.  Even though I used to curse
at driving on trolley tracks during rain/snow ( a REAL experience!!) I
still miss them.

Sorry for the length, but you asked for it

Best regards------

---------------------------------------
Robert W. Miller, Senior Physicist
Radiation Oncology Branch, COP, DCT
National Cancer Institute, NIH
Bethesda, MD  20892

Internet address:  "bmiller at helix.nih.gov"
Telephone:  (301)-496-5457



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