Amusement Parks and West View Park

[brathke at juno.com]

Bob,

Thanks for the great recap.   I may have mentioned this before, but my
Uncle Ray (lived in West View) was engineer on the West View Park
miniature railroad after his retiremement from the B&O in the early 60's.

We always rode the trolley to the park entrance at the top of the hill. 
We never got off at the lower stop at U.S. Rt. 19, probably because it
meant a longer walk to the center of the park.  And, I've commented
before on the holding pens at the upper (inbound) trolley stop; people
would be kept in these chain link fence "rooms" until a trolley arrived,
and then they'd roll open the gate. Kennywood Park had the same
arrangement.

I never rode a chartered picnic car - we always took a regularly
scheduled trolley, which meant a PCC.  Some of these cars were filled
with students, however, and the cheering sometimes turned to car-rocking.
I never was on a rollover, though.

You're right about the lack of work equipment at Keating.  I don't recall
EVER seeing a work car there.  After PAT took over, I was always curious
about the PCC's that were stored behind the chain link fence, between the
barn and the PRW.  Most of these cars had roll signs displaying abandoned
routes such as 1 and 5.  These cars were never pulled out for service,
and I suspected that they were still owned by PRC.  They were finally
removed from Keating in September, 1965 when the facility closed.  I took
photos of them behind the fence, and can look up their numbers - does
anyone know if they were they owned by PRC?

Bob 10/7

-------------------------------------------

On Sat, 7 Oct 2000 16:43:44 -0400 (EDT) SaturnV at webtv.net (Bob Schmidt)
writes:
> 
> That recap of your West View Park days, Bob, really lit up some 
> memory
> cells. I recall, in particular the years 1946 thru 1950 and St. 
> Justin's
> Westview Park school picnics in early June. For logical reasons PRC
> wasn't about to furnish any of their recently acquired PCC rolling 
> stock
> for charter service especially for a bunch of crazed immorals 
> launching
> their first day of Summer vacation.
> 
> Three or four orange low floors showed up picnic day around 10 AM 
> with
> their roll signs displaying "chartered". They lined up on the 
> inbound
> track of the 40 Mt. Washington line at Southern Avenue and Lelia St. 
> at
> 10:30 AM 
> 
> The trip took us downgrade to SHJ, through the tunnel on over the
> Smithfield St. Bridge, through the city, and onto the Northside via 
> the
> 6th St. bridge. On up Federal St.we'd go where it became 
> Perrysville,
> and onto Keating. By this time about twenty choruses of "Three 
> Cheers
> For Our Conductor" had been spent and we were just getting warmed 
> up.
> 
> Yes indeed, the straightaway grade up toward Keating was a kind of 
> speed
> fetish for the motorman. He would always have the controller pulled 
> all
> the way around until it butted against the limiter stop. I always 
> made
> sure I got the seat directly behind the motorman so's I could 
> observe
> him using the controller and the horizontal braking lever. Swing and
> sway it did as it travelled the PRW at full throttle with a car load 
> of
> ecstatic, boisterous, kids singing the praises of the motorman. 
> 
> The highpoint of the trip itself fo me was viewing the Keating
> carhouse/yard and seeing just what they had there. Work equipment 
> had
> always facinated me, but never saw anything at Keating except a few
> delapidated Pressed Steel high floors and a McGuire or two.
> 
> Once past Keating the PRW continued on downgrade towards Westview
> splitting Center Ave. The chanting continued as the car rocked and
> rolled right into the Park still on its own PRW. I never experienced 
> the
> return ride back to Mt. Washington since the return charter was
> scheduled too early in the evening, and I still had ticket strips to
> burn.  Mom and Dad knowing this would always drive out toward dark 
> and
> rescue me from a hard days play and any possible promiscuity.
> 
> My wife and I shop at Westview Park Shopping Center which is located
> exactly within the boundry of the old amusement park. No traces of
> anything to remind of those wonderous years except for the 
> occasional
> haunting sounds of the screaming people on the coasters, and visual
> reconstructions from well stamped memories.       
> 
> Bob S.
> 

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