West Penn Railways today - Main Line Connellsville to Greensburg

[Derrick J Brashear]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 Fredbruhn at aol.com wrote:

> When you leave the terminal and turn right onto E. Crawford you get the full 
> impact of how steep the street is.  There are good shots of passing siding on 
> E. Crawford, with one showing 709 on the last southbound trip at night.  This 
> is PA711, and may have been 119 also in West Penn days, I don't know.  711 
> turns off and you continue straight and out beyond Buttermore Street (your 
> still on E. Crawford) you eventually merge into the present day 119 which has 
> taken a outter loop approach around 
> Connellsville, sort of their outter belt highway.

My thought was the track followed Buttermore Blvd (not Street, not now
anyhow) from Crawford to 119, meeting 119 next intersection north. There's
a set of bridge piers, I think, along Buttermore, which may or may not be
West Penn. Ed undoubtedly knows for sure.

> As I remember the police station is to your right just after the tracks.  Get 
> out of your car, don't look  conspicuous if there is a cop around but walk up 
> to the railroad track and look up and you will see a pier where the trestle 
> was anchored.  As I remember but didn't capture on film there is another pier 
> close to the ground.  I have one photo of this trestle,  but not at hand at 
> the moment, that shows the line crossing the railroad and dropping right down 
> to street level.  

Some work was done recently in support of a flood control project. This
area may be different but I haven't been back to look.

> The road you turned onto is Mt. Pleasant St. and by watching the pole line 
> you can follow the right of way out of town.  There are some athletic fields 
> and where the road begins to turn left there is a road that turns sto the 
> right.  I took this road to get
> on the right of way and took one shot looking towards Iron Bridge.   It was 
> dusk and as I look at the shot today it stinks.  But the car line heads into 
> the woods and my excitement about being on Mt. Pleasant St. was short lived 
> as it sort of turned to dust and dead ended.  

My first trip, I was very disappointed by that. Like how Pittsburgh St in
Connellsville doesn't exactly go up the river like one might guess;-)

> I drove every side road I could find around the turnpike and found nothing.  

? Well, I'll have to look at a map to describe, but the road down into
Hecla has evidence of a trestle crossing it. And the remains of the West
Penn bridge over the turnpike are still evident. Or, what couldn't you
find?

> The car line comes in from your right at Hecla and there was a passing siding 
> just south of the wye.  It appeared  that heading south from Hecla towards 
> Standard before it crossed the PA turnpike as it was leaving the side of the 
> road it started to climb pretty quickly.  But I didn't walk it.


> We get a helping hand as there is a street that parallels 119 called "street 
> car street"
Trolley Car or Trolley Line street, currently.

-D