[PRCo] West Penn - March PTM calendar

[Fredbruhn at aol.com]

I'm old enough to remember the West Penn  (not as old as titanium Fred) but 
never rode it in operation.  I have however traced the line several times 
from 1962 to this past year.  We have talked at length about the inspection 
trip titanium Fred, Derrick and I had under the leadership of Ed Lybarger.  
We all learned and all contributed to 
our education.  With that said, I'll get back to the subject matter.

In the comments about the photo of Leisenring and the junction of the Dawson 
line
from the Back Line, everyone agreed that this was vintage West Penn.  But 
there may be some in our group that may have an image of the line that may be 
misconstrued.  After boring you last night with my comments about the back 
line through Little Summit,  a was thinking today about some of the towns on 
the destination signs, in timetables, on maps and what they were compared to 
what you might think they were.  Most of the towns on the West Penn were 
"patch" communities,  the term patch used in the same context as a coal mine 
community.  On the back line for example the town of Bitner was composed of a 
few homes and a large brick -- as I remember -- company store.  The store is 
still standing.  The road today is paved, but I wonder if it was in 1950.  
Even today it is at best 1.5 lanes wide.  No California freeway.  The car 
line through Bitner was in fact across a creek and probably the rail spur to 
the mines reached by a healthy walk on a cold night.  WP didn't bother to 
swing over and run through town.  You walked to the car line.  If it wasn't 
for Ed we would have missed Phillips.  Orient was a fair pace from the car 
line.  Republic, even as an established  town, was a long hike from the car 
line.  The West Penn came through Cardale and across a long trestle well away 
from Republic.  

Leckrone on the Martin line today is a few houses and an empty company store.
The long Leckrone trestle took the car line mostly over what was Leckrone and 
many railroad tracks as shown in a photo Ed had.  What we think of as towns 
today may not have had electricity until well into West Penn days.  We rode 
on what were in essence one lane roads through the Revere area on the 
Brownsville and Martin lines which Ed informed us were the main roads of the 
1940s and 1950s.  The coal patches were dirty, gob piles everywhere, coal 
dust and soot in the air.  The EPA would have had a field day.  I once read a 
piece about a ride on the West Penn.  
There was an odor on the cars, a combination of tobacco, garlic, and sweat 
from the few miners who would ride a stop or two.   

Back to the Back Line  from Connellsville to Uniontown via Phillips, the West 
Penn
made little effort to make their routes user friendly, running mostly on a 
high bank 
in woods well away from everything except ground hogs.  Ed has provided some 
good history on the town routes also and the car company's reluctance to run 
on city streets.  Many of the names we see were little more than a mine name, 
a patch of a few houses, a crossroads, or something of the like.  Masontown 
was a well developed and prosperous burg yet the West Penn choose Harvey 
Street to run along which is a good walk from downtown.   

The West Penn didn't service bed room communities.  We are fortunate that for 
whatever reasons the lines lasted until 1950 - 52, they did and we have the 
photo history we do today.   

the other Fred