[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh one-man cars

[Schneider Fred]

Ed Lybarger mentioned that a year or so ago.   Brookline via South  
Bank ran from Brookline Blvd and Queensboro Avenue to downtown via  
the P&CS beginning September 12, 1910.   It was discontinued November  
1910 due to "traffic insufficient."   Nobody lived there that early.


On Sep 12, 2008, at 9:41 AM, BobDietrich wrote:

> So Fred with all this talk about Brookline and double tracking (You  
> at least
> mentioned it below) how was the Brookline tunnel used and when was it
> closed?
>
> Bob
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
> Schneider Fred
> Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 5:07 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Pittsburgh one-man cars
>
> 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
>
>