Finleyville

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Ed and I discussed this the other evening ... I just came from my second week at
Arden.
There are several points not necessarily discussed.  First is that double end cars
could have run to Finleyville but I do not ever remember it appearing in the route
cards as a separate and regularly scheduled route.

Riverview was the normal destination sign in my lifetime for extra cars out of
Pittsburgh in the rush hour.  I have no idea what kind of sign the 4200s / 4300s
working Donora normally carried on those rush hour trips that were extended north
from Black Diamond through Monongahela to Riverview Loop.  We do have a rush hour
ca. 1951 or 1952 picture of 1444 and 4359 at Riverview ... the PCC, which was not
normally used in interurban service, had a paper RIVERVIEW sign rammed into the
sign box in front of the linen roll; the side sign was centered between CHARTERED
and 38 MT LEBANON.  The double end car had a DONORA sign, slightly  miscentered in
the box because it took two men to set one of those room signs.  At least in this
instance we have proof that the DONORA sign meant either Black Diamond or
Riverview and it was incumbent upon the passenger to learn how to read a
timetable!

Second:  Pittsburgh favored route signs instead of destination signs.  When you
put the sign box on the roof of a car so that it takes one man and a large mirror,
or two men without a reflection, to change a sign, it is highly impractical to
constantly change signs to reflect terminals.   Short turn cars had different
route numbers in the city, e.g. 43 NEELD or FRANKSTOWN SHORT or 9 PERRYSVILLE or
62 TRAFFORD.  On the interurbans, something had to be done to reflect actual
terminals, such as WASHINGTON, CANONSBURG, SHANNON, ROSCOE (This sign did exist),
DONORA, CHARLEROI (used instead of ROSCOE for many years), LIBRARY and RIVERVIEW.
Inbound trips normally used the same sign as outbound runs, except that in the
very late 1940s (up to perhaps 1951) the PITTSBURGH signage could be used.  If
you've trained a man not to change a sign on a low floor, why bother with changing
it on a PCC?

Third:  Perhaps most realistic of all is the possibility that there was room left
on the linen to add FINLEYVILLE and a sign painter simply made them up that way
one day!

Fourth:  Perhaps the company was thinking of running tripper cars to Finleyville.

"Edward H. Lybarger" wrote:

> The cars turned at Riverview Loop, as Jim says, as there was no place to
> turn between (West) Library and there.  I'm not entirely sure of the logic
> of the Finleyville destination curtain, unless it was used just on
> southbound cars, leaving Riverview as the destination for northbound cars
> from Donora.
>
> Ed
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> [mailto:owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org]On Behalf Of Jim Holland
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 4:15 PM
> To: PRCo -- WP -- JTC -- The Big *3* --
> Subject: Finleyville
>
> Greetings!
>
>         I have several photos of single end low floor cars displaying the sign
> FINLEYVILLE.  Turn around facilities do not exist at Finleyville.  The
> cars would have to continue to Riverview to be able to turn.  Was this a
> valid destination sign?
>
> James B. Holland
>
>         Pittsburgh  Railways  Company  (PRCo),   1930  --  1950
>     To e-mail privately, please click here: mailto:pghpcc at pacbell.net
> N.M.R.A.  Life member #2190; http://www.mcs.net:80/~weyand/nmra/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20000822/106e968b/attachment.html