[PRCo] Another Western PA field trip

[Fred Schneider]

Mark McGuire would like this if he's coming up in the spring.

Ed and I were out yesterday for the ultimate in depressing field trips.

We followed the former Steubenville, East Liverpool and Beaver Valley  
Traction Company from the route 60 overpass near Midland PA down to  
Steubenville Ohio.

This is a trip you need to get Ed to guide you on.

When the SEL&BVT went out of business in 1939 because Ohio route 7  
was being widened, the area's steel mills and pottery factories were  
still quiet busy.   There was still money in the Ohio valley.   Well,  
today those towns actually make Wheeling and Uniontown and even  
Donora look prosperous.   The carbarn still stands in East Liverbile  
(oops, Liverpool), Ohio.   A lot of the downtown buildings are gone,  
however.   It's, as Ed remarked, the kind of a place "you wouldn't  
live in if you didn't have to."   Grisley is an apt discription.   We  
actually did find the location of one old picture of a PRC low-floor  
type car because the Little Building (the tallest building in town)  
is still there.   But another picture showing one of the newest cars  
that later went to Allentown could not be located because every  
building behind it is gone.

At Smith's Ferry the paving was scraped off the street last fall to  
repave it and the crew with the asphalt truck never came back.   You  
can see all the old yellow brick and clearly see where the double  
track was.   And I was sorely in need of a porta potty and the ties  
were still in the street ... well no they weren't ... and I was more  
in need of one afterward.

And further down the line in Wellsville, the whole block where the  
station used to be must be where the largest old folks home in  
captivity is today.

And Toronto ... well, you don't want to drive too fast or you'll wake  
up the people.

Steubenville?   About one-third of the downtown buildings have  
disappeared.   Don't try to figure out where pictures were taken  
because the backdrop is gone.   I have a great McKinley Crowley  
negative of a low-floor car marked
"in Stubenville" ... its a street scene .... but there isn't a single  
building in that block that exists today.

There are even places on the trip where we could find rail coming  
through the streets.

But if you ask Ed to take you ... carry your own lunch and empty the  
bladder first because there are few conveniences left in the Upper  
Ohio Valley.

This has to be the reverse of my January trip to Florida where the  
population increased three fold since 1950.   Some of you may  
remember the brown glass in the building in Greentree on the Parkway  
West that reflects the evening sun back in your eyes?   Or down in  
Charlotte NC, there is a similar brown glass building along the new  
trolley line?   And down in Miami there is another kind of solid  
brown glass that they used after the last hurricane while waiting for  
the appraisers to get done in Nawlins.   Well Steubenville has a lot  
of that kind ... brown plywood glass.   They use it when buildings  
aren't used or when they get burnt out.

OK Ed.   Did I leave you something to play off of?    Are you looking  
forward to conducting another trip?