[PRCo] Re: Interurbans to Pittsburgh

[Fred Schneider]

Since you sell books and ephemera, I would start by asking Ed Skuchas... I've found three or four different years so far, all at different East Penn meets.  Maybe I xeroxed one that someone in CERA had.  fws

-----Original Message-----
From: "Edward G. Skuchas" <eskuchas at comcast.net>
Sent: Mar 24, 2005 10:25 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Interurbans to  Pittsburgh

Fred,

Where could you get a copy of the CETA listing of freight cars?  The history
of the traction freight cars has always been of interest.

Thanks,

Ed


> From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> Reply-To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:18:16 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Interurbans to  Pittsburgh
> 
> Farther than Chicago, Matt.  The limit was probably on one of the Wisconsin
> Public Service Company lines out of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which could be
> reached from Chicago via the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee and The
> Milwaukee Electric Railway and Transport.   The greatest contiguous route in
> Illinois should be one of the lines in the western part of the Rockford,
> Illinois city system, about 50 miles beyond Chicago.    To the southwest, by
> way of Cleveland, and Indianapolis, and Terre Haute, you could reach the end
> of Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Company rails in eastern
> Illinois.  The entire network of lines in southern Michigan could also be
> reached.
> 
> To the northeast, you could probably, by going from Pittsburgh through Ohio
> and back into New York state, and then east, you could get to Cooperstown NY
> on the Southern New York Railway.
> 
> From Pittsburgh by trolley, given an abundance of nickels and a butt willing
> to be tortured, you could reach nine states (PA, OH, IN, IL, WI, KY, WV, MI,
> NY) and one Canadian province (the International Railway Company [Buffalo] had
> a Canadian subsidiary that crossed the Niagara River into Niagara Falls,
> Ontario and connected with the Niagara, Ste. Catherines and Toronto Railway.
> 
> If you want precise details, look for one of the maps put out by the Central
> Electric Traffic Association, an organization representing most of the
> electric railways in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.   They have been
> published from time to time by CERA.  You might find one of the originals if
> you watch e-Bay for long enough.
> CETA also published rosters of the freight cars owned by each affiliated
> company ... afterall, they were trying to interline freight and express
> shipments.  
> 
> Additional question will wait until I get home.  The weather was gorgeous
> today in New Orleans.
> 
> Fred Schneider
> 
> fws
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Barry <mrb190+ at pitt.edu>
> Sent: Mar 24, 2005 1:17 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Interurbans to  Pittsburgh
> 
> YOU HAD TO ASK
> I've heard that it was once possible to get on a street car in
> Pittsburgh and, by connecting with other street car lines, make your way
> to Chicago. Is that true?
> 
> - John Richard, McCandless
> 
> writer: CHRIS POTTER
> <mailto:cpotter at steelcitymedia.com?subject=You%20Had%20to%20Ask%20Feedback>
> 
> don't blame you for being skeptical. Today, Pittsburghers have greatly
> diminished expectations of mass transit. We've got a "subway" that
> consists of three underground stops and a "T" system that is little more
> than a bus on rails serving the South Hills -- twice. The notion of a
> Boston- or Washington, D.C.-style system -- where rail transit extends
> in all directions beyond city limits -- appears to be beyond our
> imagination.
> 
> But during the first quarter of the 20th century, Pittsburgh trolley
> lines connected such far-flung towns as New Castle, Beaver, Washington,
> Greensburg and Uniontown. Unlike the plans for a similar regional system
> being discussed today, they somehow managed to do so without requiring
> magnetic levitation. And they sometimes even did so without forcing you
> to go through Downtown. And all this with "[n]o dirt, cinders or motor
> trouble to worry you," as a 1925 advertisement for the Pittsburgh
> Railways Company put it. As those living along the East Busway can
> attest, it would be nice if our own mass-transit system could say the same.
> 
> Established in the late 19th century, these routes were called
> "interurban" lines because they ran not within but between urban areas.
> Freight trolleys -- I know, it sounds like a contradiction in terms,
> like "regional transit system" -- carried newspapers and mail, steel and
> coal, and even milk. For the most part, though, interurbans were
> conventional trolley cars, running on electricity provided by overhead
> cables.
> 
> And you could cover long distances by trolley, if you didn't mind making
> a lot of transfers. Other cities had their own interurban lines
> connecting them to their outskirts, and outskirts like Wheeling, W. Va.,
> and Kittanning had lines connecting them to outskirts of their own. At
> some places, two interurban systems connected, making unlikely towns
> into veritable crossroads.
> 
> For example, the "Harmony Line" extended from Pittsburgh to Evans City,
> and from there onto New Castle. New Castle had a line to Youngstown,
> Ohio, whose interurban network linked up with those of Cleveland and
> Toledo. From Ohio, then, you could travel by streetcar to Detroit,
> Indiana, Chicago, and even to parts of Wisconsin ... if you were into
> that sort of thing.
> 
> At least one person, Pittsburgh Press reporter William Lytle, did make
> the journey from Pittsburgh to Chicago in the early 1920s, starting with
> the Harmony route from Pittsburgh to New Castle. A contemporary account
> in the Gazette-Times reported that such a trip cost $14 in fares and
> required a "leisurely" two weeks of hopping on and off cars. (A
> conventional train, obviously, would get you to Chicago much faster --
> only a reporter or other parasite with nothing more pressing to do could
> go by streetcar.)
> 
> Gilbert Love, a Press reporter who wrote about Lytle's journey in a
> brief 1970 story, stated that "Other long trips by trolley car were
> theoretically possible. ... Splicing local lines together, a person
> could have gone north to Erie, then east to Buffalo and on to Hudson,
> New York. ... With other connections a determined trolley rider could
> have gone as far southwest as Louisville, Kentucky."
> 
> In 1925, the Pittsburgh Railways Company, which operated much of the
> interurban trackage, could boast, "[T]his mode of travel has practically
> superseded the railroad passenger train for all interurban traffic and
> is becoming a considerable factor in the longer distance traffic." But
> the network didn't last long. As roads improved and automobiles became
> more affordable, interurban traffic was usurped by buses and cars. Its
> gasoline-powered rivals were more flexible on short trips, and the
> railroads were faster over the long haul.
> 
> The northern routes Lytle had used were among the first to close. The
> Harmony line, for example closed Aug. 15, 1931 -- just 23 years after it
> opened. According to the Pittsburgh Ledger, the last car of the
> Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler, and New Castle line -- aptly called "The
> Bummer" -- "died of an overdose of gasoline." The last interurban lines
> to be cut, those serving Washington, Pa. and Charleroi, were drastically
> curtailed in the mid-1950s. Some stops on today's T system, like Mine #3
> and Library, were originally stops on the old Charleroi line.
> 
> Just think: These non-descript stations aren't just stops along a
> redundant trolley line. They were once part of a system that brought us
> closer to places like Greensburg and Uniontown, and brought those places
> closer to us!
> 
> Of course, that may be why the system was shut down in the first place.
> 
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