[PRCo] Re: Interurbans to Pittsburgh

[Edward G. Skuchas]

I asked myself, and I did not have any.  Anyone else.
Ed


> From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> Reply-To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:46:00 -0600 (GMT-06:00)
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Interurbans to  Pittsburgh
> 
> 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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