[PRCo] Re: Boggs & Buhl train

Wed Apr 11 10:33:22 EDT 2007

It's no longer at the old Planetarium.  That's been replaced by the Carnegie
Science Center, which now hosts the layout.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Herb
Brannon
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:14 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Boggs & Buhl train

Speaking of model railroads. Do they still setup the large layout at Buhl
during the holiday season?
Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:  Do you remember also the
B&O O-gauge model railroad layout built by
Mel Thornburg that circulated around the northeast, probably through
the efforts of Larry Sagle of the B&O to publicize the railroad?
It used outside third rail. Al Kalmbach ran several articles by
Thornburg in the early 1950s or late 1940s on how to scratch build
super detailed 0-gauge locomotives, always of course using the B&O
models as examples. I saw the layout in Pittsburgh on tour in the
1940s and then I think I saw it later at the B&O museum in
Baltimore. It took a lot of space; I think the B&O museum
eventually may have disposed of it and used the HO version instead.

On Apr 10, 2007, at 9:34 PM, Bob Rathke wrote:

> I have an article from the B&O Magazine in1951 that lists all the
> depatment
> stores in the East that had the B&O miniature trains. It mentions
> Boggs &
> Buhl. The Boggs and Buhl train was battery powered; as recently as
> the late
> 1980's I saw a gasoline powered version of the train at an outdoor
> carnival
> hgere.
>
> Bob 4/10/07
>
> -----------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Robb"
> To:

> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 6:42 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Allegheny
>
>
>> The G12 trains were built by Miniature Train & Railroad Company
>> and were a
>> common sight in department stores at Christmas in the late 50s. I
>> have an
>> article on them in Grand Scales Quarterly, but not close at hand.
>> I think
>> they were rented for the holiday season. There's a bit of info here.
>> http://www.trainweb.org/parktrains/history/mtc/index.html
>>
>> Many of these trains still survive.
>>
>> Here's a larger G16 that has been preserved. Click on the link at the
>> bottom and you'll see a B&O G16.
>>
>> http://www.toytraindepot.homestead.com/16INCH.html
>>
>> Bill Robb
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Bob Rathke
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 6:55:48 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Allegheny
>>
>>
>> Boggs & Buhl closed in 1958. In the 1940's and 50's they operated
>> a train
>> ride in the toy department at Christmas and Easter - an electric 1
>> ft.
>> guage
>> B&O streamliner. I've often wondered what happened to that train
>> after
>> the
>> store closed
>>
>> Federal St. was still stop on the PRR up to the time the commuter
>> trains
>> were discontinued in the Fall of 1964. I'm not sure when the
>> Federal St.
>> Station building cesased being a station, but I remember the auto
>> dealer
>> that took over the building - Reed Studebaker, I believe.
>>
>> Bob 4/10/07
>>
>> -----------------------------
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Fred Schneider"
>> To:

>> Cc: "Dennis Lamont"
>> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 10:33 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Allegheny
>>
>>
>>> I guess we all have our memories of the Nor'side.
>>>
>>> My Grandma Rebele lived off the 3400 block of Perrysville Avenue
>>> so I
>>> have my memories of the former City of Allegheny too. In fact, as
>>> long as Grandma lived, the lower Nor'side in her mind was still
>>> Allegheny. She never adopted the word Pittsburgh. But then she
>>> was married to my Grandpa and moved from Pittsburgh to Allegheny
>>> before it was annexed to the larger city.
>>>
>>> My Great Grandpa Rebele, whom I never knew, lived at 1439 Sandusky
>>> Street in a house that, surprisingly, still exists near Allegheny
>>> General Hospital. I've had conversations with a waitress of German
>>> ancestry, Jean Cerra, in Max's Allegheny Tavern who remembered tales
>>> about how her relatives were forced to lie about their ancestry in
>>> order to enroll their son (her grandfather or father) into a
>>> parochial school on the Northside. No German's were desired in
>>> that
>>> neighborhood at that time because it was for English people. The
>>> Germans, like my Great Grandfather and hers, lived in the triangle
>>> between the rivers after the War Between the States. Eventually
>>> much of that part of the north shore the river and Troy Hill became
>>> German but not without protest.
>>>
>>> My memories of the 1950s when I was running around the Northside was
>>> a of quasi-vibrant but declining area with a market at Ohio and
>>> Federal Streets. Pittsburgh Railways still maintained an house on
>>> Sandusky Streets north of East Ohio Street with the line / inclines
>>> department on the first floor (Charles Shauck was the superindent in
>>> my era) and the track engineering department was on the second
>>> floor. Shauck dragged me around to some wonderful places to eat in
>>> the market after, he claimed, I'd dumped all my money in company
>>> fare
>>> boxes.
>>>
>>> Allegheny had its own department store. Boggs and Buhl survived
>>> until 1957 I think. Ed Lybarger could fill you in on the details:
>>> one of the original founders of the store was one of the founders of
>>> the Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler and New Castle Railway as well as
>>> one
>>> of the land development schemes up north near Warrendale. I
>>> remember the story that my uncle took his two daughters in to outfit
>>> them for school during the grand going out of business sale and the
>>> store forgot to send the bill.
>>>
>>> The Garden Theater degenerated in later years to an X-rated venue on
>>> North Avenue. That part of Allegheny became rather nondescript.
>>> My grandmother and mother used to worry about me if I was waiting
>>> for
>>> an 8 car down at Federal Street and North Avenue.
>>>
>>> I can also recall when the Pennsylvania Railroad was tearing down
>>> its
>>> grand castle of a station on Federal Street ... also known as the
>>> Fort Wayne Station. At one time the PRR station on the North Side
>>> was a base for some trains starting there and heading west. It was
>>> also a starting point for some trains that went east via the
>>> Allegheny and Connemaugh River lines to Johnstown. I'm not sure
>>> when the waiting room closed and it just became a non-agency stop
>>> for
>>> commuter trains ... probably even before World War II. I remember
>>> it as a Studebaker dealer. Then in 1954 I took some 35mm negatives
>>> of it being dismantled.
>>>
>>> But I remember the Northside as a city ... blocks this way and
>>> blocks
>>> that way filled with buildings. The last time I drove through
>>> there
>>> a few months ago I was suddenly struck by a totally different
>>> impression. It was one of how many blocks of buildings had been
>>> bulldozed away in order to build the East Street Expressway, the
>>> Crosstown Expressway and the I-279 Expressway. Perhaps 20 square
>>> blocks of buildings vanished. And as the link Boris posted
>>> pointed
>>> out, the heart and soul is gone thanks to the loop around the middle
>>> of it. Just restoring transit to the middle of Federal Street and
>>> East Ohio Street won't change anything ... the market is gone.
>>> Sears Roebuck is gone. The Carnegie Library is empty. The
>>> shoppers are out at the mall off McKnight Road. A small number who
>>> are captive may still be downtown because they have no automobile to
>>> take them to the mall.
>>>
>>> But, if you drive out East Ohio Street, between East Commons (we
>>> used
>>> to call it Sandusky Street) and East Street) there are still a
>>> couple
>>> of blocks of stores reminiscent of old Pittsburgh including ... get
>>> this guys ... a camera store and an Isalys. I've added a link
>>> to a
>>> google map showing that area today.
>>>
>>> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Federal+Street+at+North
>>> +Ave.,
>>> +Pittsburgh,
>>> +PA&layer=&sll=32.442523,-87.032472&sspn=0.098367,0.148659&ie=UTF8&z
>>> =16&
>>> ll=40.452123,-
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> 80.006669&spn=0.011087,0.018582&om=1On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, Boris Cefer
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> http://www.newcolonist.com/finding_allegheny.html
>>>>
>>>> There's an exhibit in the Heinz Architecture Hall at the Carnegie
>>>> Museum
>>>> of Art which suggests other ways Allegheny might be revitalized.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> _______________
>> Be a PS3 game guru.
>> Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo!
>> Games.
>> http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121
>>
>>
>
>

Herb Brannon