Laketon Road -- Was: This Last Week

[mrb190]

(another forward --djb)

Thanks again for a great history lesson.  Pointing out the actual lines these
cars last ran on  or stopped running altogether anywhere because certain major
lines were being abandoned, really put this all in to perspective.

Matt

Fred Schneider wrote:

> 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