[PRCo] Wilmerding Sunday Pass Riders

[Matt Barry]

Recollections from the following website:
http://www.georgewestinghouse.com/hi.html


One of our favorites was "pass riding."  Pittsburgh and its suburbs had 
a great streetcar system.  I think it was called the Pittsburgh Transit 
System.  On Sundays and holidays, you could ride all day long for 25 
cents with a pass, or 35 cents without the pass.  After you bought that 
first pass, you were set to enjoy a whole day of riding for just a 
quarter. You could transfer to any of the other streetcars of the System 
without any charge. Such a deal.

Naturally, we started on either the streetcar, the 87 Ardmore, or on the 
McKeesport bus. You are all familiar with the "orangish," flat front 
bus, but, do you remember when the bus was silver with green trim? It 
had a hood about 4-5 feet long. The nice thing was that the bus went up 
the ice plant hill, instead of the 5th Avenue route. That came later.  
We just had to go to the bottom of our street, Brown Street, to get the 
bus, and get started on our day long adventure.

We liked the number 56 trolley that we boarded in McKeesport after 
taking the bus from Wilmerding. If you ever rode it, you would recall 
that it was partly a "country ride." The tracks were not on a paved 
street. The tracks were set on a gravel base with dirt on both sides. 
There were trees and grass close by on both sides. The trolley would 
rock side-to-side which added to the fun.  This trolley went through 
McKeesport, on through Dravosburgh, and on to Pittsburgh. Sometimes we 
would get off in Dravosburgh and take a short hike to Betttis airport, 
which was a private airport for small planes.  Further down the line, we 
would get off and take a much longer hike to get to, the then, "County 
Airport." This is where the bigger passenger planes were, mostly TWA.  
In those days, these were all prop planes.  What a thrill it was to see 
these big planes landing and taking off.  Back then, there was no charge 
to go up on the roof to watch this great spectacle.   We usually ended 
up at Kennywood Park just for the fun of it.  About all the money we had 
with us, for the day, was 25 cents.  That was for goodies to sustain us, 
till we got home, usually, before dark.  In those days, candy bars, pop, 
small bag of chips were just 5 cents each.  A milkshake or a sundae was 
15 cents.

We learned our way around Pittsburgh by accident.  There are several 
ways to get to Kennywood.  We would sometimes take the  #68 trolley from 
McKeesport through Duquesne and on to Kennywood.  One time, upon leaving 
Kennywood, we boarded the #68, thinking that we would be going back to 
McKeesport.  What we didn't know was that after it passed Kennywood, it 
went to downtown Pittsburgh.   At first, we weren't aware of where we 
were.  It was starting to get dark and we wondered why things were not 
looking like Duquesne or McKeesport.  The conductor told us that we were 
in downtown Pittsburgh, and told us to stay on the same trolley for the 
return trip to McKeesport, which was the L-O-N-G way home. In those 
days, we had no fear of being accosted in any way.  We never had any 
problems in all the times that we had our adventures on the trolleys.  
These were, "The Good Old Days." We did this at least twice a month.  
Also, in those days, you kept your "Sunday" clothes on all day.  There 
was no changing into older clothes or "overalls".  We didn't know 
anything about blue jeans in those days.  The overalls were the "bib" 
kind, you know, like the farmers and carpenters wore.  You had the 
pocket in the middle of your chest, and that little narrow space to 
carry a pencil. After that experience, we then got brave, and rode into 
Pittsburgh many times, on different routes, just to learn our way around 
Pittsburgh. In those days, the "blue law" was the rule.  Just about 
every business was closed, except for drug stores, theaters and some 
gift shops. It's hard to believe today, but the grocery stores closed at 
6 P.M. Saturday evening, and didn't open until 9 A.M. Monday morning.  
This was the Pennsylvania blue law.

Another thing that Bobby and I enjoyed doing was walking the streets 
looking for "match tops." Match covers were popular in those days 
because there were few lighters being used. The match tops were from all 
kinds of businesses.  They were different sizes and shapes. Some were 
very clever eye-catching ones as well. The best street for collecting 
was Airbrake Avenue.  I guess this was a well traveled route to get 
from, say Pitcairn, Wall etc. to Turtle Creek, East Pittsburgh and so 
on.  The next best street was Middle Avenue. We both had quite a nice 
collection.  I guess we probably threw them out, as we probably did with 
our old baseball cards. DUMMIES!!  We had the baseball cards from the 
30's.  What a price on those cards nowadays.  Who would have known?