[PRCo] Route 80

[Fred Schneider]

Since Derrick is the steel industrial historian among us, maybe he  
wants to jump in....
Not sure if I just told John or the whole list so I better correct  
both ...

Route 80 did not quit in 1934.   There was a conflict on the route  
card ... it was August 23, 1924.   One-Nine-Two-Four.

And John, they ceased using the bridge over the PRR on 8th Street in  
Braddock in Nineteen Aught and Eight when the new Rankin Bridge  
opened (the new one that collapsed in the 1930s).   So by 1908 the  
route of destination 80 (which didn't appear on the cars until 1914)  
was the same as the eastern end of route 55 that you and I knew.

What I would really love to have some explain to me is the details on  
the expansion and employment numbers by years at

1.  Homestead US Steel  (20,000 maximum in 1945)
2.  Homestead, Mesta Machine  (Perhaps 5000)
3.  Rankin, Carrie Furnace  (Included in Homestead)
4.  Edgar Thompson Works, Braddock  (Maybe 5,000 tops)
5.  Westinghouse, East Pittsburgh  (11,000 in 1914)
6.  Westinghouse Air Brake, Wilmerding
7.  Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Glenwood

Could those seven companies have employed 50,000 at the peak?

Then add in the U S Steel (Carnegie Steel) Tube Works in McKeesport  
and the Duquesne Works.

Not hard to see why the jumble of lines around Homestead, Braddock,  
McKeesport, East Pittsburgh and Wilmerding is so confusing to anyone  
who looks at it ... any why there were so many routes including all  
the tripper schedules.  And why one of the first electric cars in  
Pittsburgh in 1890 was the Second Avenue Railroad and its extensions  
into Homestead.....

 From the New York Times: There are many reasons for the closing of  
the Homestead Works, which employed 20,000 workers in 1945, 9,000 in  
the late 70's, 3,500 in the early 80's and 23 the day the mill went  
down in July 1986. It was not imports. For years, money came in so  
fast that neither the company nor the union had to be creative or  
disciplined. Mills went unmodernized; at the same time, vast sums  
were spent on equipment not used. Job reductions could have been  
expected from new technologies, but new products were not created,  
new markets not sought. Strikes were thought wasteful, and to avoid  
them bloated contracts were negotiated and costly work rules not ad-  
dressed.

The third URL below relates to a 1914 strike in East Pittsburgh when  
9,000 men and 900 girls walked off at Westinghouse Electric.  If they  
had 10,000 on strike, they needed another 1,000 in management.





http://www.coalcampusa.com/rustbelt/pa/pa.htm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html? 
res=9A07E1D61730E733A25755C0A9609C946596D6CF