[PRCo] Changes to Power Company Empires

[Fred Schneider]

Ah, so.  There were two generations.   Not at all unlike this family.

And now you've given me an excuse to figure out how to connect my  
color printer!

Some day we will not doubt redo the first display that we did at PTM:  
the electric, light, gas and transportation industry.   When we do, I  
would love to be able to produce a map that shows all the major power  
companies in Pennsylvania today that had electric railway  
subsidiaries at one time in the past.  Of the top of my head they  
included but are not limited to:

Duquesne Light Co.
    Pittsburgh Railways
    Beaver Valley Traction Co.

Allegheny Power Co.
    West Penn Railways
    Chambersburg, Greencastle & Waynesboro
    Wheeling Traction
    Hagerstown & Frederick
    Mon-West Penn

PPL Electric Utilities
    Conestoga Traction
    Lehigh Valley Transit
    Williamsport Passenger Ry.
    Jersey Shore Electric
    Ephrata and Lebanon St. Ry.

Metropolitan Edison (These were the people made famous by TMI)
    Reading Traction and Light Co.
    Schuylkillvill Valley Transit
    Roxbury Chestnut Hill & Norristown
    Reading St. Ry.
    Oley Valley St. Ry.
    Lebanon Valley
    Lebanon & Annville
    York Railways
    Hanover & McSherrystown

And there were many more.  Problem is companies jumped ship from time  
to time and were combined with one organization one year, and a few  
years later with another.

The PPL Electric Utilities was Pennsylvania Power and Light Co., part  
of Lehigh Power Securities, which was part of Electric Bond and Share  
Co.  EBASCO was owned by General Electric ... a railway example like  
NCL of how to stack the purchasing department cards in your own  
favor.   If someone wants to see the Lancaster Birney car, I'll be  
happy to show you a piece of apparatus with all possible hardware  
obtained from General Electric.

There were also some unique small power companies that served the  
public when they felt like doing it.   Lancaster and York Furnace St.  
Ry. sold off excess direct current to farmers in southwestern  
Lancaster County PA but only during the day.  Any normal farmer  
should be in bed at night.  Wind up clocks would get him up.  By the  
time he had to get up, the power plant would be up and running again  
because the trolley would need it.   And when the last car was in the  
barn at night, the power plant would again be shut down for the night.

Guess I've got to go to the PUC and find out who serves whom for  
starters.


(Original note left only for those who wish to see the entire thread,  
Jim.)


On Sep 24, 2005, at 5:17 PM, Bob Rathke wrote:

> I want to share the following e-mail that I received this week from  
> my Uncle Bob who lives in Greensburg.  He grew up in the same house  
> on Spring Hill that I did, but 20 years earlier.  The house was  
> just one block from the end of the 5-Spring Hill trolley line.  He  
> also liked rail subjects and photography, and he's given me  
> hundreds of photos that he took in the 1930's and 40's.  He even  
> took a few rolls of Kodachrome slide film in 1939, and the color in  
> them is still good today. After he moved from the house in 1946,  
> his sister (my mother) took over as family photographer, and by the  
> mid 50's that was my job.
> My uncle started to work at West Penn Power in 1938, and retired in  
> 1987.  Although much of his collections disappeared (see below), he  
> did give me that 1929 hand-painted West Penn Railways map that once  
> hung in the company's headquarters, and that I now have here.  A  
> scan of part of the large canvas map is posted at  http://www.rr- 
> fallenflags.org/lightrail/west-penn-elec-map.jpg
>
> His recent e-mail follows.
>
> Bob 9/24/05
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Bob,
>
> In my teens I did a lot of fishing with street car motormen and  
> spent a lot of time in the Millvale Carbarn "bulling" and taking  
> pictures of the old orange and yellow cars. I had two shoe boxes  
> full of those photos and one box full of photos of the big West  
> Penn Railways cars that I took after I started working there.
>
> I also took a lot of pictures of the two-ended trolleys on route  
> #5.  I helped the motormen switch from front to back at the end of  
> the line. Put the trolley up and move the control handles to the  
> front, and pull down the trolley. For all that work I got to ride  
> free any time up to when I went in the Service in 1942. Some of the  
> old motormen were still around when I came home in 1945, and I  
> still rode free.
>
> I also worked after school at the Fulton Theater downtown and I  
> could go in free to any theater in town.  When I got home in 1945,  
> all my items stored in the attic were gone - all the fishing  
> pictures, boxes of street car pictures, my full set of Topps 1939  
> Pirate baseball cards, my merit badges from the Scouts, etc.
>
> Uncle Bob
>
>
>
>