[PRCo] west penn memories

[Harold G.]

Greetings to all
I have enjoyed reading about the West Penn.

It was a western Penna institution.

I was fortunate to ride most of the system in the late l940's 
starting with an ERA weekend fantrip arranged by Charles
Dengler and Lazear Israel.

I travelled over night from New York on American Busines
to Irwin.  Got off on route 30 and walked into town.  After
breakfast, I boarded the fan trip car and was off for the
day ening up on a Monongahela steam train to Charleroit and
then a chartered PRC interurban to downtown Pgh and the
Hotel Henry.

I returned several times on my own before abandonment.  West
Penn was abandoned because the entire Coke Region died.

Management and crews did an excellent job with little resorces.
The trolley on PRW served many little mining hamlets directly.
When buses came, they were on a nearby public highway where
passingg autos could stop and pick up passengers.  This was true
for both West Penn buses and then Fayette Coach Lines (Lincoln).

Cities like Uniontown and Connelsville died at the same time.
when the mines and ovens closed.   TV and loss of weekend
riders came later and buried the knife in a dead body.

Unless the transit line went into downtown Pgh (of the nearby
mills) it was all over.   This also occured in places like Oil City
where a Montour affiliate, Citizens Tranasit, purchase new diesel
buses in 1949 and was out of business 3 years later.

West Penn operations were geared to the area they served.  The family of one of my men in the National Guard lived in Manor right on the trolley.  They
went every where by trolley, right from their door.  To get to jobs at
Westinghouse in East Pgh they took the PRR.  The same to Wilmerding.

West Penn operations were safe and practical.  Hitting the signal levers
with a broom stick was a West Penn tradition.

I had an interesting personal experience in 1951.  On a Saturday I went
down to Connelsville to see the manager.  I gave him my card from the
Harmony Short line and watched his attitude change.  He related me
to Mr David McCahill, Harmony owner and former lawyer to West
Penn in the 1930's at the time of the AV Division lines.  That was a
fast deal and I did not understand it at the time.  It took me an
hour to convince him that I was a railfan and not a spy for McCahill.
After that I was welcome but the first hour was interesting.

I had ties with Lincoln Lines about Fayette Coach.  They had
purchased new buses and once again it was all over in a few years.

So, the real answer is that the entire region died and the West Penn
went with it.  They were a good company that served the area well.

I guess some of the same things happened on Monongahela West
Penn, Wheeling and Wilkes Barre.  I rode a good bus line from
Cumberland to Westernport which died in similar circumstances,

Keep on reporting on West Penn.  Most people today know very
little about it.

Harold Geissenheimer