West Penn Today - Greensburg and Latrobe

[Edward H. Lybarger]

The section on West Penn in the Morning Sun book came out OK, I was pleased
to see.  I have over 100 hours of editing and consultation time invested in
that one, and it was worthwhile even though it was volunteer time.

Fred's minor confusion at Red Onion (Haydenville) is easily excusable, as
it's easy to become confused here.  (Red Onion is where he turned "at the
first road to the right.)  He was on the Hunker route, actually, which came
up essentially the NB lanes of 119 from the King's Restaurant, where the two
lines were only about 400 feet apart.  As 119 comes north past the sewage
plant, the county home (now some sort of "manor") and the prisons, the line
was on the right side (have a Steve Maguire photo of two cars passing at
County Home Siding here) and went straight ahead where the highway bears
left.  In the center of this little community it turned left, crossed the
road Fred took to reach Broad & Reamer, then came back to the east side of
119.  I remember the former RR overhead bridge south of Huff; it had a
separate arch for the street car.  But the Hunker line's another day's
writing.

Coming out of Latrobe, the line passed the big roller rink at Kingston, did
a 90-degree crossing of the highway, and went directly into Kingston Siding.
The roller rink has been replaced with another large building.  The photos
on Volkmer page 24 are great shots but are hard to reconcile with what you
can see today.  As Derrick points out, the place where the line meets the
road just north of Youngstown is very obvious if you look at just the right
spot.  Car line stayed on the street through town, moved to the west, then
crossed at the church to the east side.  The culvert is just south of here.
Again at the north end of Baggaley it crossed again to the west side, then
went around the curve and up the hill past Hostetter Works as described.

Whitney is worth the visit.  The trestle piers are largely still in place
and some feature interesting treatment in their adaptive re-use.  The point
where the line intersected the road at Hugus Crossing is quite evident;
Summit Siding sat just to the south (right) of here until 1945.  At Trauger
the line was up on the hill behind the church, then worked its way out by
the road for a mile and a half, crossing above Calumet at the road back into
United Kromers - United Stop).  Norvelt is at a completely different
elevation than Calumet.  The former was a 1930s community named in honor of
the President's wife.  The bridge pictured on page 23 of the Volkmer book is
indeed the Calumet Bridge.

Fred, your travels have brightened the summer!  I've been involved in a
fairly intense project requiring inordinate amounts of donkeywork for a
client over the past couple of weeks, so the current effort has brought
sanity to July.  We will definitely have to do a full-fledged tour over the
winter.  Anyone for Oakdale-McDonald?

Thanks,
Ed

-----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 18, 2000 10:39 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: West Penn Today - Greensburg and Latrobe


There is one reference source I have not mentioned until now because it was
not available when I planned my trip.  Morning Sun's "PA Trolleys Vol. III"
is a nice addition to the library.

A few of the shots in the book deserve a comment.  On page 10 the bridge
from
Everson to Scottdale has been replaced. On page 18, the trestle to climb
over
the railroad in Scottdale is shown and as Derrick added the scene may be
further changed today from when I was there because of some flood control
work.

The Armbrust bridge is also shown from bridge level.

I left you at the North end of the Youngwood industrial area where the line
paralleled the PRR (former) yard on what is today Trolley Line Avenue.  I
was
stumped as I was looking across the small set of piers into a hill with no
ideas.  Ed has helped us with the information to pick up the line from here,
by locating the King's Restaurant which I will do on my next trip.

Not knowing this, I traveled north on 119, a very busy highway, to the first
road to the right which had a traffic light.  I took that road and it is
mostly rural residential and
a bit rugged with a valley between us and the other side.  I missed any
evidence of right of way and could have been entirely on the wrong road.
After going a fair distance the road bore left and after a stop and a left
turn to try and pick up something I ended up at the intersection of Broad
and
Reamer where in WP days the line continued with Sandhouse siding about 1/4
mile beyond.  I'll find it next time.

I took Broad north towards Greensburg which turns into Highland.  Its a fair
piece up this street which I assume was all street running.  At Mt. Pleasant
you can see the railroad overpass that is still in place.  The Rohrbeck
movie
shows cars on this street and on page 13 of the PA Trolleys Vol. III book is
a nice shot too.

I had done some preliminary map work on the Latrobe line but between the
Westmoreland County map being on two sides, the roads in the area somewhat
broken up and a plot of the line through or close to the towns on the
timetables, it looked a bit like the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, up and
down.

I decided to drive route 30 to Latrobe and work my way back to Hecla and
take
my chances.  One of the remains I was looking for was the Latrobe barn.
Bill
Gwinn had taken a few shots there on a fan trip and the barn looked
interesting.  Somehow I had
gotten the impression the barn was on a side street, probably from my talks
with Bill years ago.  From Rohrbeck's movie there is a shot of a car passing
the Latrobe
Rolling Rock Brewery.  (Rolling Rock is a good beer too, even without Rocky
Mt. spring water.)  Latrobe's two main streets are today one way so I drove
north past the brewery to Washington St.  I'll save you the details on a
frustrating trip back and forth with every cross street a stop.

The barn, as I now know, is there but has been shortened.  Next time I'll
find it.
I drove south through town and I assume the scene is changed much today.  I
didn't try to find Loyalhanna Creek and the line crossing and Kingston
didn't
make any connection for me either.  I do know there was a siding at
Kingston.

There is a cloverleaf at PA982 and US30 which I sort of ran into and then
continued on 982 into Youngstown.  Small as I remember and didn't see much I
could identify but continued on and was soon in Baggaley.  It appeared to me
that the line ran beside PA982 between the two towns and through Baggaley.
Not much in Baggaley.

At Baggaley I turned right onto PA2023 as the line crosses this road as it
leaves
Baggaley and heads up a hill.  The line makes a big sweeping left hand curve
as it climbs, crosses the road (3023) and continues to climb to the top.

The next town we will come to is Whitney, a bit south of 3023 and on 3027,
which crosses our road (3023).  Remember the line crossed 3023 after
Baggaley, so as we are going west the line is on our left hand side.  It
looks like the line reappears after cresting the hill and runs almost
parallel to 3023 but some distance to the South
and through open fields (today's scene).  I did not drop down on 3027 to see
the Whitney layout and don't know why I didn't.

I stayed on 3023 because it was headed in the right general direction and
not
far after Whitney the line appears to come up out of some woods and cross
our
road again.  A rather steep climb with the road about 2/3 of the way up the
climb.

3023 crosses PA130 south of Pleasant Unity.  The line must have run through
the country between our last road crossing and PA130.  I turned right onto
130 and at the bottom of a hill before you get to the town proper the line
crosses 130.  Ed has identified this scene as being near a brick farmhouse
and the pole line continues
in this wide valley on a straight line towards Hecla.  I guess you could say
the line was at the "south end" of town, a decent walk.

3023 was not going we wanted to, so I went into Pleasant Unity and turned
left onto
PA981.  The next town was Trauger.  After Trauger is Calumet and it sure
looks like the line came up to meet 981 and ran right through the present
day
front yard of a
frame house.  It looks like the line crossed 981 (from south side to the
North side)
at this point and disappears into current day woods.

Norvelt and Calumet are almost one.  In WP days a mining community (Calumet)
By driving around the area you will see a large fill on both sides of a
creek.  Obviously the line.  What I don't know is if this fill was the
approaches to the
Calumet bridge or if that bridge (PA Trolleys - Vol III page 23) is another
one.

After this point PA981 heads south towards Mt. Pleasant, and we must take
2007
to Hecla.  The line ran through countryside or woods to Hecla.

This was the end of my adventure.  I hope to go back again, and certainly
encourage any of our group to visit whatever portion of the line you can.  I
watched the Co-Op lines remain virtually unchanged for 30 years, and then it
seemed like instantly
road construction and building took it all away.  My memory is fading of my
quick trip in 1961 and a few moments in Uniontown in the early 70's, but I
remember enough to know that these scenes will change.  I see photos of the
West Penn with hugh bog piles, or tailings, and they are all gone today.

You all have been very patient and kind to let me ramble on for these past
three weeks.  I feel disappointed we have not heard from Jim Holland much in
this time.
I am indebted to Ed and Derrick and Bob Dietrich for their help on this.
The
corrections they provided will help us all become more accurate on the
lines.

Now that I've exhausted my oxygen, we can get back and talk about Ozone.

The other Fred