Laketon Road -- Was: This Last Week

[Fred Schneider]

When did the low-floor cars quit running?  Last double-end car route was 12
Evergreen in December 1953.  Corey Ave, Donora, Castle Shannon - Mt.
Lebanon, and three Washington lines quit in 1953.  Laketon Road was 1952.
There were a host of other double end lines running after WW2 that were
either converted to PCCs (Spring Garden, Glassport, Heidelberg, and route
48) or abandoned outright (Reedsdale transfer,  Evans Avenue, Library St in
Braddock, Schoenville,  Thornburg, Atwood Street (single end cars in rush
hour), 36th St. Transfer.  I'm sure I've forgotten some.

The single-end low-floor cars were gradually phased out due to route
abandonments, normal post-war patronage declines, replacements with newer
equipment (666 PCC cars), and protracted labor disputes which drove away
traffic.  Without looking at actual scrap data, it occurs to me that the
1000 and 1100 PCCs replaced the last high floor cars and perhaps some 4700s.
The 1200s began to eat deeper into the fleet.  By 1949 there were major
patronage declines which continued year after year.  And there were some
route abandonments during the period:  Etna and Millvale quit in 1952, the
interurban abandonments in 1953 released about 15 PCCs for city duty (1700s
and 1s moved onto Castle Shannon replacing 1400s to other routes).  

There were quite a few hundred single-end low-floor cars in the 4800-4939,
5000-5159, 5200-5282, 5400-5464, 5500-5549, and 3750-3769 groups around in
1952-1953 but I suspect not many more than a hundred were being used in the
rush hour after 1952.  Route 8 Perrysville was probably the second heaviest
line in the system at the time, and I don't think it used more than 3 to 5
5500s in the rush hours on weekday.  Keating alone had long lines of surplus
yellow cars in 1953 and Ingram was filled with them being scrapped.  The
company planned to keep some yellow cars and toward that end, low-air alarms
were installed on a number of them at Homewood Shops during the 1954 labor
dispute.  I've been told the scheduling people continued to rewrite trips
out of the schedules all through the six-week long strike but they still had
too many cars on the street in the summer when the trainmen settled.  Some
yellow cars came out in June and were promptly discharged from active duty.
I have no idea when where the last one ran but June 1954 is a safe
supposition. 

In general, the oldest cars were scrapped first ... the 4700s.  After the
war, the remaining unconverted single-end low-speed cars went ... that wiped
out all the 5100s except 5159.  The details of scrappings are available by
car number ... how much detail do you require?   

In April 1955, I watched a barn man at Keating pump up air on an idle 5500
and take the last one from that car house to Ingram for scrapping.  

Ten high speed double-end cars were retained until 1956 until emergency use;
nine were scrapped and 4398 went to Arden.  That was the last year that
there were any cars in the fleet that could be used in passenger service.


		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Carl Zager [mailto:czager at bloomington.in.us]
		Sent:	Friday, March 03, 2000 8:20 AM
		To:	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		Subject:	Laketon Road -- Was: This Last Week

		Do we know how the replacement of the low-floor cars took
place? Were they
		retired by condition or on certain routes (or shops) first?
When/where did
		the last one run in revenue service?

		I noted in a message to Fred that our family used to ride a
bus from
		Laketon Road into Wilkinsburg where we transferred to
trolley to Homewood,
		East Liberty, downtown. And often it was a low-floor.

		The ubiqutous dot-dash map of PRy in Parkinson's book
suggests that the
		Laketon trolley route was abandoned in 1952. We lived on
Parkway, just off
		of Laketon, from 1948-1955. Admittedly, I would've only been
9 in '52, but
		I was always aware of streetcars and streetcar tracks (I
remember
		commenting on the "cobble stone" pattern -- perpendicular
between the
		rails and parrallel outside the rails when we still were
living on Bennett
		Street). I just don't remember 1. ever riding a trolley into
Wilkinsburg
		from Laketon Road, nor 2. any trolley tracks on that section
of Laketon.

		Now that I have reached the age of the number of Heinz
varieties...who
		knows? <grin>

		And yes, I know the paving bricks are not actually cobble
stones. That's
		just what my family always called them. Imagine my
disappointment to
		discover how even more uneven and rustic actual cobble
stones really are.

		 Carl Zager
KB9RVB
		 czager at bloomington.in.us
http://www.mccsc.edu/~czager