[PRCo] Iron Bridge Car House

[Edward H. Lybarger]

I've been away for a couple days...

Fred's analysis of the Iron Bridge facility was largely informative but
included a few facts that weren't facts.  So to clear those up, some
additional data:

Iron Bridge housed the Mt. Pleasant Division.  It was closed in December
1911, with the men and equipment transferred approximately as mentioned.
The town retaliated by refusing West Penn the practice of passing main line
cars at Main Street by pulling the northbound car onto the street to allow
the southbound car to go through (they did this at Tarr Jct, too; PTM has a
1901 photo of a meet there).  This would have quite disruptive to the
schedules; the Connellsville Courier did not report the ultimate outcome but
we know the company survived, so it is likely the local politicos backed
down.!  West Penn had at the time recently completed two route realignments,
one at Painter (near McClure, between Swedetown and Iron Bridge) and another
at Buckeye (on the hill above Bridgeport) which would have speeded up the
schedules.  The earliest stop list I have is 1919, so I don't know when
Mullen Siding was installed or what Buckeye Siding replaced (or even if it
was installed at the time the line was relocated).  Some of the dates
surrounding the movement of the division are unclear, but I note that some
of the clippings were from the WEEKLY Courier, which would explain some of
the confusion; I need to go back and read the daily paper.  One of the gems
in the PTM collection is a photo montage of the 1909 crew members at Iron
Bridge.  A friend in Mt. Pleasant loaned me an original to copy and we used
it in an exhibit, then Scott Becker found another original at a flea market
and acquired it for the Archives.

West Penn crews indeed had a union, but I don't know the date of its
inception.  It wasn't particularly powerful.

The main line schedule called for ten cars, I believe including spares.
There were plenty of extra cars available in early 1933, so it was no
particular problem for the shops to prepare ten one-man cars for entry into
service one dark morning.  Storing the ten that came out of service was
trickier, as there wasn't a definite future date that they could disappear
from Connellsville.  So they were dispersed over the system for storage.
Oakford (3 tracks) and Iron Bridge (4) would easily have held them all,
unless they were loaded with other stuff, in which case Irwin, Uniontown
(between the barn and the substation) and Latrobe might have been employed.
But the idea at the time was to protect your equipment regardless of its
present utility, so I suspect they were kept indoors.  We do know that at
least some of the McKeesport cars temporarily ended up at Iron Bridge, too,
where one was photographed in the late '30s (as were two 700s at Oakford) to
be advertised for sale.

We have no particular evidence that Iron Bridge was down to just two cars by
1945.  We do know that this was the case in July 1951 when Mr. Swindler
trudged up the barn lead with his father.  The Seyfried photographs were
taken in April 1952, not 1951, to boot, and the movement to Connellsville
likely took place then rather than in 1951.

I have been in Iron Bridge barn by invitation of the owner, several winters
ago.  Most everything above the floor appears to be original.  The front of
the building had some bricks removed (from the top rows) between 1938 (?)
and 1951.  There is photo evidence that proves this.

Oakford Park was active as a swimming facility into the 1970s.  I know
nothing of a sale to a trucking company.  It was taken off the books in 1943
with a charge of $82,072, and the track (1060 feet) was removed in 1945.
That year the company  also reported (delayed) a loss of $14,455 on the
Oakford Park property.  This one could be easily researched by a trip to the
Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds office.

Oakford Park Car House is still standing, in plain view of motorists
traveling PA 130.


Ed