[PRCo] Re: West Penn Destination Sign Photo

[Harold G.]

Fred and all    Greetings

Some unpaved roads were probably "red dog" from tjhe mill
Many driveways and parking lots wetre this.   Harold
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Date: Monday, January 17, 2005 10:15 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: West Penn Destination Sign Photo


>And in the West Penn era, many of those roads were still dirt.  The
Masontown replacement
>bus did not serve Leckrone because there was no paved road into the company
town.   I
>understand that the Lincoln Highway (partly US 30) was not completely paved
until 1935 and
>it was the first coast to coast highway that was fully paved.  We're only
talking fifteen
>years later and about four or five years after the last transcontinental
highway was
>totally paved.  I'm sure in 1950 there were still, in the Coke Region, a
lot of roads
>where the dirt was simply masked by the coal dust.  No doubt that helped
West Penn to
>survive as long as it did.  (Don't quote me ... it's an opinion.)
>
>
>
>Fredbruhn at aol.com wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 1/17/2005 5:56:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>> PRCoPCC at P-R-Co.com writes:
>> If the
>> > system works right, Derrick's computer will take it from here and put
>> > it where you all can view it if you like.
>> Sorry for the panic message.  I dropped the ULR and it came up just fine.
I
>> lack computerese.
>> Question - Isn't the Uniontown, Hopwood, Fairchance color the same as the
>> Dawson sign?
>>
>> Fred,  the other Fred, not the  one with the titanium knees and
>> extensive travel schedule.
>>
>> You may remember a couple of years ago we had a long discussion of a trip
>> Derrick, Ed, Fred III, and I took over most of the WP lines.  With the
discussion
>> of the bus substitution, it may be of interest that what we drive on
today as
>> "rural" narrow two lane roads were the main highways of the 40's - 50's.
We
>> took off out of Revere on the line to Brownsville and Martin which was
less
>> than a two lane road and Ed commented this was the only road in WP days.
It is
>> only a 10 or 15 minute drive from McClellandtown to Uniontown today on
the
>> nice 3 and 4 lane road, but it was a winding disjointed trip by car in
1950.  The
>> road today cuts off McClellandtown on a high bank and took out the
wonderful
>> curved crossing in front of the school that was pictured in many books.
>> There is a bit of the concrete wall in front of the track that is still
left,
>> but its not easy to find.  As Ed has said before, the WP didn't exactly
>> travel through many towns.  Republic was almost totally missed,  and in
Mt.
>> Pleasant on the main line if you didn't know where the WP came through
you would
>> never find it.  Probably a half dozen city blocks from the center of
town.  Many
>> of the towns are just a few houses and a company store supporting the
mines
>> around them.  Today it is mostly gone.  The back line from Uniontown to
>> Connellsville almost missed every town and today if there wasn't a large
building left
>> (the ex company store) or a sign designating the town's name you would
not
>> find it.  I guess my point is you can look at a WP map and see all these
>> communities, and believe it was a prosperous source of revenue, but those
towns
>> weren't.  Someplace long ago I read that almost no rider (except railfans
the last
>> couple of years) took the entire trip from Uniontown to Greensburg.
>
>
>