West Penn today

[Edward H. Lybarger]

I was at an open house at the West Penn Connellsville facilities a few years
back.  Many of the carbarn and shop buildings are still in use.  They still
have rails intact (including some dual-gauge track in the rear of the
building) and the power company uses the pits for storing transformers.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
[mailto:owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org]On Behalf Of
Fredbruhn at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 10:49 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: West Penn today


The car barn in Uniontown was converted to a sub station sometime with the
barn torn down.   The transformers and electrical gizmos were put on the
floor where you could still see the tracks in the concrete floor.  Today all
that is gone but the site is still used for power transmission  with a new
floor.   It is not hard to find.

As Ed points out in the July photo of the Museum calendar for 2000 the
Uniontown station is now a business building and looks quite nice, even to a
car stop sign attached to the overhang.  You can no longer drive around the
building  as West Penn did and was possible by car for many years.

The Greensburg terminal is intact, and now the City Hall.  They have made a
2
story addition where the overhang was for loading and unloading.  The
freight
terminal hasn't changed much and take note of the WP logo that is concrete
or
stone on the top of the front facade of the building.  I stopped in the
building at the police desk to tell them what I was doing and they didn't
have a clue what a street car was.

Connellsville terminal looks very much as it did in WP days, and is now a
bank.
The freight terminal behind the passenger station is gone.  The main shops
at
Connellsville look like Ft. Knox.  WP Power uses the site as a storage area
for
supplies with many new buildings.  I think there may be a couple of the
original buildings back in the complex but gates, fence and a foreboding
appearance kept me out of there.

Dunbar will never change.  Easy to trace the route through town.

Next time I'll pick up my Brownsville - Uniontown trip at Republic where I
left off
and got some help from Ed to clarify things.

Fred