[PRCo] Pittsburgh one-man cars

[Schneider Fred]

Care to read a little bit about the earliest long distance route in  
Pittsburgh's South Hills?  I'm blabbering about a line that is partly  
still in service .... well, a track in a tunnel parallel to it is in  
service from "Dormont Junction" to Clearview Loop."  None of the  
original alignment remains from Clearview Loop into Pittsburgh.  The  
portion from Castle Shannon to Mount Lebanon is largely on the  
original alignment.

West Liberty Street Railway from the headhouse of the Pittsburgh  
Incline to Clearview in the village of Mount Lebanon was the oldest  
car line to the south outside of Pittsburgh.  It's charter goes to  
October 1898.   This connected with the 1886 Brownsville Avenue  
Passenger Railway from Carson Street to the headhouse of the  
Pittsburgh Include.  Brownsville Avenue has been renamed Arlington  
Avenue.   And that connected with the 1889 Pittsburgh and Birmingham  
Passenger Railway on Carson and Smithfield Streets.   So perhaps by  
1898 or 1899 you could ride a trolley from a country village called  
Mount Lebanon to downtown Pittsburgh.

Mount Lebanon then was an unincorporated village in Scott Township.    
Dormont didn't exist; that was part of Scott Township.   The Borough  
of West Liberty had not yet been absorbed into Pittsburgh.   And by  
the way, for those unschooled, a "liberty" was a public grazing land  
for your cattle and sheep and other farm animals.  There were several  
liberties in the Pittsburgh area.  West Liberty and East Liberty  
(sometimes called S'liberty) spring to mind.  I think I even remember  
reading of a North Liberty.   So now you know that West Liberty  
Avenue had nothing to do with Liberty Avenue on the other side of  
Pittsburgh.   It simply was the main street in the borough of the  
same name.  It was the extension of Washington Road (later Warrington  
Avenue) in Pittsburgh once you crossed the boundary into the Borough  
of West Liberty.

Nudder subject: the earliest one-man substitution I have found in  
Pittsburgh was an attempt by Pittsburgh Railways to run a shuttle on  
route 304, destination 38 between Castle Shannon and Mount Lebanon on  
February 16, 1920.   The company gave up the noble experiment on  
April 12, 1920 because the carmen's union refused to pick the job.     
The next time I've seen the subject of one-man cars turn up was when  
the 51 Bon Air line was converted to one-man cars in 1923.   This  
time the Railways Company made it stick.   Back to Mount Lebanon:    
Sunday service became fully one man instantly on October 21, 1928.    
Saturday service was converted to one-man between September 27, 1930  
and October 15, 1932.   The first one-man cars on weekdays ran  
September 23, 1930 and the route was fully one man by June 29, 1933.

By the way, the 38 line had a long history of running through to  
Castle Shannon and beyond.   The original shuttle was merged into the  
Mount Lebanon- Pittsburgh route in February 1903.   The idea of  
running beyond Castle Shannon didn't originate with the extension to  
South Hills Village via Beechview as some as some of you might  
believe, or the period when you could come out of Pittsburgh via  
Beechview or South Bank and go to Drake or Library under PAT.

Way back on July 9, 1911 the route cards show that PRC extended  
Sunday service on route 38 Mount Lebanon to Washington Junction  
crossover between 7 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.   I could be contemptible and  
put a lot of down arrows to give yins a chance to think why.   Got it  
figured out yet?   The Sunday extension was to haul passengers to  
Saint Anne's Roman Catholic Church.   There is no mention in the  
route cards when the service was dropped.

Something else very interesting.   I think a year or more ago there  
were comments about how the South Hills did not really develop until  
after the Liberty Tubes opened in 1924?   Well, here is an  
interesting note from the route cards for April 15, 1920:   
"Crossovers at Bell House removed.  Entire line [Route 38] is now  
double-tracked.   But it was not true.   It was a duplicate entry  
that also appeared on the route 39 route card.   What was really  
being said was that route 38 and 39 were now double track from  
Brookline Junction to Warrington Junction and South Hills Junction.

There was nothing in the route cards to show when they finally got  
rid of all the sidings between Brookline Junction and Clearview Loop.

There are notes that new sidings were installed in 1921 and 1922 at  
West Liberty Avenue and Potomac, West Liberty and Blaine, West  
Liberty and Kelton and Washington Road and Bower Hill Road.
And on Mary 15, 1923 new Nachod signals were turned on between  
Brookline Junction and Clearview loop, a distance of over 7,000 feet  
with at least four sidings.

It was still open country.....
http://pghbridges.com/pittsburghW/0584-4474/liberty_tun.htm