[PRCo] Re: PSSST - WANNA BUY LOUSY PICTURES?

[Edward H. Lybarger]

West Penn never owned the replacement bus operations for Irwin and the main
line.  They were owned by the companies Fred names.  West Penn withdrew its
petition for bus replacement there before it received permission to abandon
rail service...the company learned its lesson from the five bus routes in
the south.  Autos were simply too much to compete with...especially with
such jobs as were around not generally being on the transit lines any more.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 5:21 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: PSSST - WANNA BUY LOUSY PICTURES?


I'm very forgetful in my aging condition ... but didn't he  (Bill Gwynn)
also
take the picture at the south end of the Brownsville Juction bridge showing
the
alternate transportation?   While the railfans were out at the requisite
photo
stop on the day after fantrip in 1950, the replacement bus came along.   One
or
two of the railfans actually had the presence of mind to photograph the car
and
a brand spankin' new GM diesel bus side-by-side.   I think Bill might have
been
one of them.  Maybe it meant something to him because he drove them in
Wheeling.  Sadly there were never many pictures taken of their buses, and
the
bus empire lasted only until June 1953 when declining patronage ended the
operation.  I think the mainline and the Irwin branch, which were sold to
Fayette Coach Company and Lincoln Bus Lines lasted a few years longer ... I
chased one of their buses southward out of Greensburg in the winter of
1957-1958.   I took a couple of negatives of buses inside the old Uniontown
carbarn during Memorial Day weekend in 1953 but I doubt that they (the
negatives) even exist today.

Community Transit certain prospered by West Penn's short sightedness.  It
isn't
every day you find a group of 30 and 42 month old buses in the used bus
market.
I'd wager that none of them had even piled up more than 15% of the miles
they
were engineered to run.  Geissenheimer could tell us how many were still
around
when PAT took over in 1964 because he worked there.

"Edward H. Lybarger" wrote:

> Bill Gwinn's negatives are largely "mapping grade," but every now and
again
> a relatively sharp one shows up.  Sometimes, too, he aimed the camera 180
> degrees from all the other fans (90 degrees in the case of the West Penn
> crossing at McClellandtown) and got a wonderful alternate view that no one
> else bothered with.
>
> Bill's house in Bridgeport recently disappeared...whether it collapsed or
> was taken down for safety reasons, I'm not sure.  I was there after he
died,
> to acquire the collection for the museum.  It stank, not unlike other
homes
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