[PRCo] Re: People_--_Scenery

[Edward H. Lybarger]

I still question this measurement.  30,000 ovens at 10 feet wide is only
300,000 feet, or 57 miles.  That's 101 miles less that West Penn had in the
Coke Region alone.  If they were 12 feet wide (and I don't have my HAER
drawings in front of me to tell for sure), that adds only another 12 miles.

But the comparison sounds just as interesting as the "TV caused West Penn's
abandonment" story, and is just as factual.  It sounds like it's something
someone wants to hear.

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Fred
Schneider
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 11:43 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: People_--_Scenery


Amen to Dennis.   Strings so long that the aggregate of all those
strings of ovens were longer than the miles of track that West Penn
ran.   It  wasn't called the Coke Region for nothing.


On Jan 15, 2007, at 8:26 AM, Dennis F. Cramer wrote:

> I highly doubt any of the coke ovens in the Connellsville coal
> fields looked
> anything like:
>
> http://www.sceneryexpress.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PL6100  --  for  WP
> models!!!
>
> the time West Penn came along.  There would have been a few
> abandoned ovens
> here and there, but the major coke producers were using beehives in
> long
> strings.
>
> The experience of working at a beehive plant during the college
> years left
> me with a love of the smell of burning coal.  Yes, there were
> beehive ovens
> in Armstrong County in the early 70's and that work helped me pay
> for the
> vast majority of my undergraduate degree myself and I left college
> with 0
> debt.  It also gave me lots of experience of working with 600 volt DC
> trolley wire.  We ran all of our power tools, except the welding
> truck, off
> the overhead.
>
> Dennis Fred Cramer
>      Trombone
>
>
>