[PRCo] Ohio Valley Trolleys by Morning Sun

[Fredbruhn at aol.com]

All in all I found this book pleasant with some nice Pittsburgh shots.  The 
book also covers Wheeling, Mon West Penn, Cinn., C&LE, the Green line, 
Louisville, Home Transit and a bit of Indiana Railroad.
 
My purpose in this note is to make a couple of corrections to the captions in 
the Co-Operative Transit section  of Wheeling.
 
Center photo on page 50 -  This location is at the South end of the island 
and the end of route 1, South Island or Fairgrounds.  The white building was 
later a race track and I understand it currently houses a gambling establishment. 
 The line turned right (from the motorman's view) at about where the 
photographer is and started north on S. Huron Street.  There was a stub end siding off 
Huron for cars delivering patrons to the fairs, football games, etc.  
 
The bottom photo is captioned wrong.  Car 1 rolled through Martins Ferry a 
few miles back and is now in Yorkville.  This downtown has changed very little.  
The mill to the right is Wheeling Steel's Yorkville plant.
The river is right of the mill.  We are looking north in this view.  Rayland 
is another 2 or 3 miles beyond 
Yorkville.  The siding was moved from further south of town to better serve 
shift change at the mill and they did run trippers at shift change.
 
Top of page 51 -  This ramp and viaduct in the rear brought the cars over the 
railroad which ran through Martins Ferry.  At the far end of the viaduct 
there was a wye with the Rayland line continuing on in the street to north Martins 
Ferry (stop 5 and the end of the 71 car line) and the two diverging tracks 
going
onto the viaduct.  So, southbound Rayland cars (heading to Wheeling) as well 
as Route 71 cars 
which had terminated about 1 mile north of the viaduct in a passing siding 
and reversed direction and came across the viaduct used it southbound.  The 
northbound route 75 - Martins Ferry Mill line used the viaduct going  Northbound 
and entered the wye turning left into a street at the base of the ramp.  You 
can see
the turnout for the wye.  Route 75 went east a few blocks, turned north again 
and went about 4 blocks to the main gate of another Wheeling Steel plant.  
(see end of line on page 185 of CERA 110)  Heading inbound to Wheeling, route 75 
retraced its route to the base of the ramp, went left onto the street where 
car 1 in this photo was about enter and all inbound cars then went through a 
residential stretch, then through
the business district of Martins Ferry and back to the bridges across the 
river.
 
Page 51 middle -  The cation says "the warwood barn was the terminus of route 
5".  That is not correct.
Route 5 (see bottom photo same pate) continued on for some distance through 
Warwood.  You can see the double track to the right of the dispatch shed which 
reentered the street just beyond the building.  At some point through town, 
the line became single track to the end of the line.
 
The viaduct area in Martins Ferry is mostly redeveloped today.  Some of the 
route 75 line can be picked up between the bricks, and bits and pieces and 
piers are visible along the line to Rayland.  New road construction took out a 
lot.  The end of the 61 line in Lansing is almost the same as it was in trolley 
days, and the road is still route 40, but most traffic goes on Interstate 70 a 
mile or so behind the buildings.  
 
One of the Freds....
 
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.