[PRCo] Re: Plummer carhouse

[Fred Schneider]

This brings back memories to me ... Dad was given a job in 1947 (he believed to
see if he could perform properly) as an engineer in the Armstrong Cork plant at
24th St. and Allegheny Valley Railroad.  (He must have performed satisfactorily
because two years later he was promoted and transferred to Lancaster as the
Plant Engineer in the Closure Plant.  He retired here with nearly 25 years
service.
At any rate ... we both have our memories of that area.  I was never really
tuned in at that time to the industry because it was not something that seven to
nine year olds think about.  It was only later than I became aware that the
original Westinghouse Air Brake plant was in the strip district, that Crane
Plumbing was next to Armstrong, and so forth all the way out to about 65th
Street.  I do remember Plumber St.barn, and I have very vivid memories of 28th
Street engine house on the PRR bathed in smoke on weekends.  But what I
remembered mostly were all of those neon signs in front of bars ... Iron City
Beer, Duquesne Pilsner, and so forth.  Must have been a bar to every other
block.

We still need to convince the museum management at Arden that we need a
propoperly illuminated bar sign.  And, of course, the left front dasher panel on
3756 or 4398 needs a beer advertisement.  (And, to be sure, someone who watches
our morals will tell us we can't do it.)

Fred the Agitator

Bob Rathke wrote:

> My father worked at Heppenstall Steel Co. in Lawrenceville, and every summer
> they had their company picnic at West View Park.  Living on Spring Hill, we
> always drove to the park, but Heppenstall chartered PRC trolleys in the
> 1940's, and possibly into the early 50's.  I remember the chartered trolleys
> leaving from the Plummer carhouse which was just a few blocks from the
> Heppenstall plant on 46th St.
>
> At that time my father's brother worked at H.K. Porter Co. which was also
> near Heppenstall and Plummer.  Porter built industrial steam locomotives.  I
> have a Porter locomotive catalog from 1943.  My father got it from the
> Heppenstall library when the company closed - the catalog is signed by
> company president R.B. Heppenstall.
>
> Bob 9/19/03
>

fws