[PRCo] Re: West Penn Destination Sign Photo

[Fred Schneider]

Ours in Penn Township was.....  I hadn't thought of it.   The term must now be
so obsolete that the only reference in my newer dictionary is to a football
term.  For those too young to understand, I believe red dog was the product of
burning coal in very confined spaces, such as a mine fire or a mine tailings or
culm bank fire.  A lot of roads in Western Pennsylvania were paved with it.  The
paved highway to Washington PA in the 1930s went out through Carnegie,
Bridgeville and Canonsburg.  There was a separate unpaved road near the
alignment of the present US 19; it crossed and recrossed the 1940 US 19.  I'm
trying to remember what my worthy colleague EHL, whose property adjoins it,
said.  I think he has referred to it was the "Washington Red Dog Road."   It was
apparently durable, readily available, and cheap.  When West Penn abandoned,
there were quite a number of referrals in the petitions to removal of tracks at
crossings, and many of them were paved with red dog.

"Harold G." wrote:

> 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.
> >
> >
> >