[PRCo] Re: West End

[Derrick J Brashear]

On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 Macmarka at cs.com wrote:

>         Being that I no longer live in Pittsburgh(20+ years now), can you 
> tell me Derrick or someone else where the busway runs on the East End. In 
> other words, what streetcar r.o.w.'s are used? I'd love to know. Thanks!        

s/East/West/ and the answer is none. The West Busway uses ex-PRR rights of
way. In this case, the former Panhandle Division main line including what
I know to have been named "Corliss Tunnel" (like the road tunnel of the
same name) thanks to Rich Orr. It became surplus to the needs of Conrail
and was owned by the Buncher Foundation for a decade or so before tyhe
Port Authority bought it and reused it for the West Busway. The outer end,
near Carnegie, runs next to the still-extant rail line which continued
west and which branched to run to Washington, PA (past the trolley
museum).

A summary of the situation is that the opening of Conway Yard (between
Sewickley and Beaver if you're not familiar with that area) changed the
balance of railroad traffic such that less traffic used the Panhandle
mainline between Weirton and Pittsburgh. The portion between the east end
of Weirton and west of Carnegie was abandoned in steps by Conrail, made
further possible as coal mines around Burgettstown either started moving
coal by truck, or closed. 

The Amtrak National Limited also stopped using the line, and was the last
passenger route to use the bridge which became part of the subway. The
train was actually totally discontinued.

The Chartiers Branch (which left the Panhandle at Carnegie and ran to
Washington) was retained (well, not quite all the way, but is still in
service to just past the trolley museum) and so access was needed, but
it's via the "Scully Branch", which runs further north of the
Panhandle-cum-busway. Thus the right of way which was now the busway,
which bypassed industries and freight yards, but included a tunnel, was
surplus, a burden, and abandoned, to become what it is, and the rights of
way used by the West End lines of PRCo by and large are vacant or have
vehicles parked on them.