W. Pa. Fables

[Fred W. Schneider III]

The most commonly circulated collection of photos of those lines were those
taken by General Electric.  I think there was a small group of Butler Short Line
pictures taken at the time it was converted by GE from 6600 volts AC to 1200
volts DC.  There was also a large assortment of pictures taken by General
Electric about the time of the opening of the Harmony route.  Frank Dodge, who
in the 1950s and 1960s traded under the name Industrial Photo Service, copied
all the the General Electric pictures he found in Schenectady, then made
duplicate negatives for sale.  The dupes were of fairly high quality.   Bill
Middleton and Donald Duke eventually acquired all of Frank's positive masters of
the Butler area photos and, in most cases, a negative from each one.  But there
may be many additional duplicate negatives in circulation.  Beyond that
collection, the pictures appear on a one here, two there basis ... often the
typical have camera will travel pictures taken showing the crew and then sold as
postcards to the crew. Barney Neuberger had a surprising amount of material on
these properties.  When he died in the 1960s, Warren Miller of the San Francisco
Bay Area bought the collection.  He peddled both negatives and prints from the
inventory at, to my mind, very astronomical prices.  I have no idea if Miller is
even still living.   There were many color postcards of the Harmony Route
published about the time it opened ... the most frequently seen view shows a car
(colored green instead of tuscan red) turning off Liberty Street in downtown
Pittsburgh ... look at antique dealers for them.  I have color slides of most of
the cards and could have them printed.





"Edward H. Lybarger" wrote:

> PTM acquired the carbody of Harmony Route 115 from inside a bar/restaurant
> near Ellwood City in 1986.  It would have had a rollsign.  But I never heard
> of one in Zelienople.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> [mailto:owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org]On Behalf Of
> brathke at juno.com
> Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 10:08 AM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: W. Pa. Fables
>
> The recent post (below) comments on a trolley legend that can't be
> confirmed.  I have another:
>
> I recall a small, old diner  that was located in Zelienople on the west
> side of the main street (U.S. Route 19) toward the north edge of its
> shopping area.  I was never inside this diner, but around 1960 one of the
> PTM (PERC at that time) members told me that the diner was a former
> Butler interurban, and that he had purchased the car's roll sign assembly
> from the diner owner, and he had refurbished and rewired it.  This member
> was gone from the museum organization by 1964, and I've never been able
> to verify his claim (I don't even know if Butler interurbans had roll
> signs).  Has anyone seen such a roll sign assembly at PTM or elsewhere?
>
> Also, in 1961 I purchased a railway marker lamp from an antique shop in
> Butler.  The store owner claimed it came from a trolley that ran in
> Butler.  Heritage didn't matter to me since it was an old rail item and
> the price was right ($5).  It looks like a 1920's marker lamp that could
> have been used on a trolley or a steam railroad, but it has no rail owner
> identification on it.   I still have this lamp, and also a similar marker
> lamp stamped "Lake Shore & Michigan Southern" (the LS&MS became part the
> NYC RR back then), so I know that both lamps are probably from the
> 1910-30 era.
>
> Can anyone point me to photos of Butler interurbans?
>
> Bob 9/30
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 01:17:25 -0400 "Tom Phillips" <tsquare at toad.net>
> writes:
> > Greg:
>
> > I had heard that one of the older operators (and PTM member) had the
> > entire front end of a 3800 at his home -- but I can't corroborate
> > this -- if so, he most probably would have donated it by now to PTM
> > which, if so, has it squirreled away somewhere.  Frankly, I believe
> > the whole thing is just a fable -- I would like to have taken some
> > measurements from it!
>
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