[PRCo] Latrobe, again, and other comments

[robert netzlof]

I've found my copy of the 1954 Latrobe centennial book (the secret is
to look for something else, then stumble over it).

Page 14 has 4 photos, one of which (lower left) is a view of the
Depot/Ligonier St. intersection, looking west on Depot St. I can't
see if there are tracks on Ligonier St. but there is a single track
on Depot which appears to go on westward on Depot.

There is a switch which would be facing-point for a car approaching
from the east and which turns left (south) onto Ligonier. The photo
is undated (drat). It is consistent with the idea that the WCRy came
west on Depot, turned south onto Ligonier.

The next page (15) has four photos, three of which show enough of the
street to see that there is a single track in each. Unfortunately the
captions don't say where the photos were taken, and I can't make out
anything to allow me to say.

All are of parades (Pershing Day parade, Gen. John Pershing viewing a
parade, Memorial Day parade, Company M returning to Latrobe in 1919).
Parades in Latrobe customarily went north on Ligonier St. and broke
up somewhere in the 1st ward (north of the PRR) or turned west and
ended at the WW1 memorial near the creek on Depot St.

But there I'm speaking of my WW2/post-WW2 recollections, and these
photos were all pre-WW2. Don't know what was customary in those days.

There is also an article on the Fullman Mfg Co (next door to the West
Penn facilities on Jefferson St) and a brief article on the West Penn
and predecessor street cars. No mention of the WCRy.

One note, someone remarked here that the original LSR line went to
Kingston. The article noted above says "Kingston Curve (near the
Latrobe Roller Garden)". That's where the WPRy crossed the Kingston
Road and headed toward the bridge over the Loyalhana Creek. Makes a
lot more sense than Kingston, which is a couple miles farther south.

Just across the creek, on the Youngstown side, there was at one time
a park, Elizabeth Park, said to have been operated by the street car
company. I was there once on foot over 50 years ago and noted a pair
of the WPRy signal lamps on poles there. I was told that they were
"left over" from the days when there was a siding there to serve the
park. 

I had never heard that the street cars went to Kingston and indeed
there was a "tight place" near Kingston where it's difficult to see
where a street car line could have been located. Since then, PennDoT
moved the creek a bit sideways in aid of the new, improved 4-lane
US30, making the tight place less tight. But thinking on it, I know
where the street cars ran going through Youngstown and looking at it
today, it's hard for me to believe they did what I know they did
there.

Several years ago the Greensburg Tribune-Review local history column
claimed that at one time the West Penn went to Idlewild Park. I think
the writer fell into an understandable confusion. The PRR Conemaugh
Division, chiefly along the river of the same name, was the Western
Pennsylvania Railroad until merged (Apr. 1, 1903) into the PRR. The
name, West Penn, survived long after the merger.

In the years before WW1 the PRR had an excursion business. Your
sunday school, fraternal order, steel works, whatever, could visit
the local PRR agent and arrange a package trip, including a private
train, to Idlewild Park which was then owned by the Ligonier Valley
RR. Folks from, for instance, Vandergrift would say "Oh yes. I
remember going to Idlewild back in 1913 for the sunday school picnic.
We went all the way on the West Penn." 

Actually, they went on the PRR Conemaugh Div to Torrance, PRR main
line to Latrobe, Ligonier Valley RR to Idlewild. Since they stayed on
the train the whole way, and they had certainly gotten on the train
at the West Penn station, it appeared to be "West Penn all the way".
So the idea surfaces now and again that "at one time the West Penn
went to Idlewild Park". Different West Penn, and even it didn't
really go there.

=====
Bob Netzlof a/k/a Sweet Old Bob


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